The second test drive

A temporary ~72V battery pack was created using four 12V 12Ah lead acid motorcycle starter batteries and two 13,2V 6,9Ah LiFePo4 battery packs in series. The two LiFePo4 packs are the same ones used in my electric lawn mover introduced in my other blog.

The power on/off switch was also a temporary solution. A switch was brought into the cabinet through the driver side window.

After charging the batteries the controller was tested and the motor rotating direction was verified. The last job before driving out from the garage was to change winter tires to the front as our yard has a steep and icy slope that could not be climbed with summer tires.

It was about -10 degrees celcius when the Corolla eFX was reversed out of the garage for the first time. I had never driven an electric car before and it felt great to accelerate from 0 rpm just using the throttle pedal. I took the risk to reverse all the way down of the icy slope in our yard unsure if the corolla would make it back to the garage on its own. On the bottom of the slope I changed to the 1st gear and gave some throttle. The Corolla moved up the slope easily and silently! It was so fun that I drove back to the bottom once more before driving back to the garage.

On this second test drive I did not have any voltage or current meters installed so I do not know what kind of motor and battery currents were used. Once I have installed some meters I'll drive up and down the same slope many times to learn about the current levels used and if the regenerative braking works correctly or not.