Solectria Force Electric Vehicle

This is my restored and upgraded Solectria Force fully electric (plug-in) car. This particular car was apparently a prototype built by Solectria in early 1992. It uses the original OEM Geo Metro 5-speed manual transmission (which I replaced with one in new condition). All other Forces I have seen have Solectria-made transmissions. I bought this car from a guy in Southern California who had gotten it at an auction after a public utility disposed of it. It had 19,000 miles on it when I got it. I replaced the batteries, charger, tires, and lots and lots of plastic trim parts. The batteries are state-of-the-art Deka sealed gas-recombinant gell cell batteries. The only original instrumentation was an Amp-Hour ("AH") meter which counts energy going into and out of the batteries. I added an Amp meter, a Volt meter and an advanced Pak-Tracker digital monitoring system which tracks the voltage and state of charge of each of the 11 batteries, in addition to the temperature of the 2 battery packs, overall state of charge, total voltage and instantaneous amperage. The motor is an AC motor controlled by an inverter. This is the same system used by GM in their EV1 cars (seen being crushed in Who Killed the Electric Car). It incorporates regenerative braking so you recapture kinetic energy when you step on the brake. I recently sold this car so I can start on my next EV project.

Category:

Autos & Vehicles

Tags:

• electric
• car
• vehicle
• solectric
• force
• azure
• geo
• metro
• battery
• plug-in

[miniUMM]

Clutchless car ?

[nvpatentlawyer]

In an electric car with a manual transmission, there is no need for a clutch. Just take your foot off the accelerator and the motor stops. So you can shift gears without a clutch. Some electric cars do not use a transmission at all, but having gears can optimize efficiency dramatically by keeping the motor running in its most optimal RPM range.

[DanFrederiksen]

@nvpatentlawyer it's not just about rpm. you need a map of the efficiency over rpm and torque and then shift to pick the most efficient.

but I believe in a purpose built drivetrain that you can design a motor to have wide efficiency even if slightly more expensive in order to just have the one gear. fixed gearing has huge advantages

[nvpatentlawyer]

@DanFrederiksen I agree. In fact, the transmission on this car was not up to the task of the high torque of an electric motor (remember, this started life as a wimpy Geo Metro) so I had to replace it with a used transmission imported from Japan. After making this prototype, Solectria switched to their own transmission. Designing a gearless electric car is fine for ground-up manufacturing, but for a conversion like this it is generally easiest and cheapest to keep the manual transmission.

[cant7think7clearly]

I'm impressed. What voltage batteries was the car using when you owned it? 11 x 12v?

I'm also impressed with your one-handed-driving- while-commentating skills! Nicely done!

:)

[nvpatentlawyer]

Fully charged it was about 154 volts.  Of course it would drop as driven. Once the batteries were down to about 12 volts (132 volts) it was pretty much at the end of its range. Solectrias come up for sale on eBay pretty frequently and there are support groups on line for help with repairs, parts etc.

[WorldStove]

very helpful and informative video. thanks for posting