Blingo versus the rest!

[chatwindows]

Replying to Jeremy.
I only spoke with two or three of the development guys, so it is possible that the main team are aware of the Blingo. To be fair & to a degree to my embarrasment, they all looked as though they should still be at school. Just shows how old I am. Lovely lads though, with an open invitation to pop in any time. One could certainly not knock their knowledge of electronics. Useful contacts, if nothing else. (excuse the pun!)
They confess that the elctronics involved in using the AC motor is their present fly in the ointment that is holding up development. So much so that the lad I first met, has recently shown me a DC version that they have played with. Quite what the final version will be is still very fluid. They too agree that the Smart, whilst being very light & limited in what can be loaded in to it in terms of payload, is presenting a problem with capacity for battery units.
The description "extremely nasty chemical batteries" was his description, not mine.
chatwindows.

[rustybkts]

I have just read the last post and was rather surprised by the comment that the inverter (AC) controller has been giving them problems.

I am of the opinion that AC controls are seriously simpler than DC because of the much simpler motor. We have been making 3 phase motors for almost as long as piston engines so no surprises there. They can easily last 20+ years with no maintenance at all.

The AC inverter has been around for more than 25 years in industry and overtook DC drives in variable speed applications almost as long ago.

I am tinkering with using an off the shelf inverter modified for EV use and will do proving trials soon on the Elise.

There does seem to be a problem though with pukka EV inverters. I thought I had found one last year made by Sevcon, but it would appear to be about a year late in development. I wonder why?

I would put money on European EM emission regulations and CE marking as the culprit. It is always easy to blame the EC as they are usually to blame somewhere.