I am happy to announce that I am now a full fledged member of the EV community. Last night I took ownership of an EVT-345 (3 wheel trike version of the EVT 4000e). I will post pictures and a review as soon as I charge up my camera and have ridden the bike for a couple of days.
The only thing I see wrong so far is the odometer/speedometer which is inaccurate. I'm not too surprised by this since I have read on other posts that it is "EVT units" and not miles or kilometers.
Rick
Nifty! I didn't realize EVT had gotten their three-wheeler to run. I'd seen pictures of one before but they never seemed to deliver.
http://evt.com.tw/html/product_evt/english/index.htm
The specs don't describe there being two motors, so is this one motor?
- David Herron, The Long Tail Pipe, davidherron.com, 7gen.com, What is Reiki
The EVT-345 has two hub motors. I think it only has one controller. The specs say it's 3.0hp, so for california it's registered as a motorcycle. On the other hand, since it's 3 wheels it doesn't require a M1 or M2 license. It can be ridden with a normal class "C" license.
I believe that I have the first one sold in Calif.
Rick
As promised, here is an initial report with pictures following.
Review:
The Good - has great torque. Get to top speed very quickly
In economy mode the speedometer indicates 25mph
(not verified with gps, but we all know that EVT speedometers are off).
In performance mode the speedometer tops out at about 39mph.
(same caviat as above).
Rear Disc brakes are quite effective. I rode up to my house and pulled
the handles for both sets of breaks as if in a panic stop and I left dual
skid marks from the rear tires.
Fit and Finish seem to be very good with all bolts tight and in place.
The Bad - The odometer is off by about 15%, I would assume that the speedometer
is also off by the same amount (not a surprise to me as I have heard
about this before from this forum. I assume the 30% off due to the fact
that I took a route which I know to be 1 mile and the odometer clicked off
1.3 miles.
The documentation (owners handbook) does not seem to match the bike that
I have. The documetation shows a different display panel from what I have.
The owners manual shows a display panel with KPH as the main indicators, and
my speedometer has MPH has the main indicators (doesn't really matter since
it doesn't really read correctly for either)
Overall: This bike (trike) has a lot of get up and go. The quality of the bike seems
high. The only thing to get used to is the handling of a trike.
My experience so far is that about 15MPH is the fastest that you want to be
taking a corner. I will be doing more experiments to determine just where
the limit is before you start to have a rear wheel come off the ground.
As far as range I haven't had it long enough to give a good report on this.
I can say that I rode about 8 miles (mostly in performance mode at full
throttle) yesterday and it took .8KWH to recharge it.
Here are the pictures:
Forgot to add that this was purchased thru a dealership (www.greenrides.com) and that they are taking care of all registration aspects. The dealership is part of Bravo Electric Vehicles distributors. I know shameless plug, but they did right by me so....
Rick
Today,
I did a range check. Riding in the "E" (economy) setting I did several trips around a loop that included 4 starts/stops and kept the throttle wide open. This resulted in a speed of about 26MPH indicated (20MPH real life) and a range of 25.2 miles indicated which translates into about 20 Miles. I rode until the battery charge red light started to blink. When I parked the bike the orange light was lit instead. You might be able to get another couple of miles out of this bike but I don't think I want to take it that far.
This seems somewhat less than the advertised mileage (30 miles), but it seems like it's in line with what I have heard for the EVT 4000e's. I really didn't expect that I would actually get the full 30, as I believe the electric scooter builders play with the numbers as much or more than EPA plays with the mileage numbers for cars.
After the bike gets a good recharge I will try the same range test in the "P" mode.
I know this mode will take you to 39 MPH indicated (31 MPH real).
Rick
Observe that it will take 10-15 full cycles to "wake up" the new batteries.
Johnny
Sweden
EVT-4000, 1999 year model 90km/h
Johnny,
Do you mean deep discharges? I have discharged the battery several time but only by riding 4-6 miles each day. I have discharged is deeper twice when I have gone 10 miles, then a 1 hour opportunity charge and then 10 miles again before giving it a full recharge. I thought that discharging the battery too much would shorten the life of the battery.
Rick
We've collected together several postings in the handbooks related to battery break-in. They're scattered within the Batteries section, look for battery conditioning and especially under the "12v SLA" section (assuming that is, your bike has 12v SLA batteries)
http://visforvoltage.org/book-page/ev-collaborative-hand-books/1012-ev-batteries
There are some various thoughts on the best way to condition batteries and BTW the best methods do vary from chemistry to chemistry.
- David Herron, The Long Tail Pipe, davidherron.com, 7gen.com, What is Reiki
You don´t have to drain them completely, a few 80% D.O.D. is enough to help pack the electrons closer together ;-)
And you are right, deep discharges gives shorter life, so maybe 10-15 deep ones is not necessary.
This is not an exact science, but you will get increased driving range when the batteries are "broken in", would guess 10-20%.
Best regards
Johnny
Rick - nice to see a report on a trike - only ever seen one on the EVT website before. Interesting that you seem to be getting a similar range to a two wheeled 4000e even though the trike is running two hub motors.
Johnny - how have you modified your bike to make it go 90km/h? Have you changed the controller?
EVT units? That's a trip. I have gotten used to the idea that EV manufacturers can't help but want to express range as how far they rode it at 5mph, but to fudge the speedo too? I suppose it will keep you from getting tickets!
Cornering trikes is weird for sure. My schwinn trike at 15 mph (real) seems to want to go in a straight line and it gets hard to even swerve around a broken bottle at 25 mph. Learn, carefully, to do the two wheeled corner so you will have that skill if it's life or death. And watch out for steep shoulders if you have to pull off the road. Once one back wheel is very much lower than the other, the trike will pull to the low side pretty hard, so slow down to walking speed first. Don't sweat the battery break in too too much, unless you are just that way. Just be sure not to leave it laying around un charged if you can help it. As long as you practice moderate discharges, 80% or less, your batteries will last ok, and if not, then they were trash batteries to begin with. With my little bike batteries, about 4 cycles of 80% woke em up pretty good.
Be the pack leader.
36 volt sla schwinn beach cruiser
36 volt lifepo4 mongoose mtb
24 volt sla + nicad EV Global
I have a 1999 EVT-4000, one of the first ever produced, it didn´t even have the "e" at the end.
By that time I started up "E-motor AB" (company) and we became the sole distributors for EVT in Scandinavia.
In 2001 EVT sold us 2 specially made hubmotors, the called them "2kW", I coupled one of them up with a Curtis 1204 (275A) controller.
Still running on 48V this gives the scooter tremendous power, would guess around 4kW.
Thanks for the explanation Johnny.
Your bike sounds great - do you know if these motors are still available?
Are you still using lead batteries and what sort of range do you get with that performance?
(A while back Craig (DeafScooter) posted some pictures of his fast 48v EVT 168 special edition scooter - perhaps that was using a similar motor. I seem to remember that his had a special high output EVT controller though.)
Actually I sent an e-mail to EVT a while ago asking about these motors, but haven´t gotten a reply yet..
Yes, use standard batteries and haven´t really tested the range since this is not that important to me, I use the scooter in the neighbourhood.
At normal speeds it doesn´t use more energy than before.
EVT have made several different controllers and my brother has the other special motor on his scooter with a higher powered EVT controller. It´s not as quick as mine though...
Johnny J, do you know of a source for brushes? I had someone contacting me directly recently asking about brushes and this seems to be one of the few issues with the brushed EVT motors. (the other being that they're sealed)
- David Herron, The Long Tail Pipe, davidherron.com, 7gen.com, What is Reiki
Please let us know if you hear any more about the motors, Johnny.
I'd be really keen to get one if it turns out that they are still available. Similarly with the higher power EVT controllers...
OK, I´ll send an e-mail right away, will get back with the reply.
Thanks Johnny!