Last week the crew did another trip in the electric UTV to test the battery’s performance.
As always, if you don’t know about our electric vehicle project, check out this and this.
This time they went up Silver Canyon, east of Bishop, to test its climbing capabilities with lots of starting and stopping.
The Forest Service closed the gate at the end of the canyon just before they got there so they weren’t able to go all the way up, but made a good adventure of it anyway.
After the climb, they headed south on Poleta Road at the base of the White Mountains. They stopped at the Line Street Bridge and Shane McNulty, the fabricator on the project, played around in some sand dunes that looked out toward Mt. Tom.
From there they continued south and then back across 395 towards home near Round Valley. On the way back, after about five hours of intermittent travel, the battery died and we towed it back.
Again, the vehicle performed very well. Despite its lack of four-wheel drive, it climbs and handles better than the 4WD gas-powered Rhinos. It’s also got a lot more power.
As always, there’s much more to be done. I mention the solar panel in the video–that will be re-installed sometime soon (here are some shots of the first time we put it on). It won’t power the vehicle on its own, but it will give us a boost when we need it. I’m not sure yet how much we’ll get from the panel, but that will be another reason for test rides as soon as it’s installed.
We’ve also got another motor on the way, as well as better batteries that should give us more power, longer run time and less weight. We’ll keep posting videos and photos of our progress so keep posted.
-Dave
by DMC Photo
That was a great video Dave. Your E-Rhino has come along really well. I think an air horn or microphone would be neat. Put some tracks on it for the snow!