In this Sustainable Transportation Club newsletter:
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Announcements:
Test Drives Electric Scooters this week
Test Drives Electric bicycles - Saturday
Bio Diesel Co-op Meeting - Tuesday
Sources for Bio diesel vehicles
Club building outreach efforts:
Results from the Palos Verdes Energy Fair
Getting the most from this newsletter
Gas users can support Bio Diesel on the Westside
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You can find the subject you want by looking for the separator bars
with the row of XXXXXs in this document.
Please send any relevant information for inclusion in this
newsletter.
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Test Drives Electric Scooters this week
You can find out exactly what it feels like to go all-electric by
riding a selection of electric motor scooters this week. We will
have the new E-max sport, the EVT 168 1500 watt scooter and a
generic 1500 watt brush-less scooter. There may also be another
one or two to try out.
Dates and times:
Wednesday May 24th 5:30 to 7:00pm
Saturday May 27th 10:00 to 12:00 noon
Where:
The first half hour will be done in the parking lot of Hastings
Plastics at 1704 Colorado Ave in Santa Monica (corner of 17th and
Colorado). It is best for new scooter riders to come to this part.
The rest of the time will be on 18th Street between Colorado and
Broadway.
Colorado is north of the 10 between Pico and Santa Monica Blvd.
Freeway Directions: From the 10 westbound drive west of the 405
and take the 26th Street / Cloverfield exit and turn right north.
Go three lights to Colorado and turn left and Hastings is on the left
at 17th Street.
From Malibu and the Palisades take the PCH to 20th street and
turn left north. Go to the second light and turn left on Colorado.
Call 310-450-7419 for more info.
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Test rides Electric bicycles
There has been a good amount of interest from people who want to
check out electric bicycles. There are some serious bikes that help
people extend their range and ease on two wheels. This could be a
strong way to get people out of their cars for local trips and local
commuting.
We currently have an electric bike on loan from the Santa Barbara
Electric Bike Company. We will give test rides on this bike as
follows:
Dates and times:
Saturday May 27th 12:00 noon to 1:00 pm
Where:
The first half hour will be done in the parking lot of Hastings
Plastics at 1704 Colorado Ave in Santa Monica (corner of 17th and
Colorado). The rest of the time will be on 18th Street between
Colorado and Broadway. See above for directions etc.
We may have other electric bikes available as well.
Please let us know if you are interested in this. If that schedule
does not work then get in touch to figure out something better.
It would be good to bring together a range of these bikes for
testing. Please let us know if you have access to these so we can
plan a better event sometime soon.
Call 310-450-7419 for more info.
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Bio Diesel Co-op Meeting
This is your friendly reminder of the upcoming general meeting of
the Bio-diesel Co-op.
Tuesday Evening 6:30 PM
Big Offices
3603 Hayden Avenue
Culver City, CA 90232
This is a great chance to meet like-minded people and to find out
all about what is going on with bio-diesel in LA.
The co-op is working to relocate their trailer so that we can get the
renewable fuel started in other parts of town. If you would want a
source near you then this is a chance to let them know.
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Sources for Bio diesel vehicles
Several people have expressed an interest in sources for diesel cars
that they can use to run Bio Diesel. Here are the ones we know
about now. Please let us know of any you might find so we can
pass the word along.
BIOMOTO Tom Francis 310-570-0547 www.biomoto.net, Tom is
a Diesel mechanic who is fixing up cars for bio diesel use. Several
people have spoken favorably about him as a mechanic.
Daniel Strebin is cleaning up 1978-87 Mercedes diesels to sell to
bio-diesel people. He can be reached at his gallery, folio, 614 Santa
Monica blvd, Santa Monica, 310-917-1160.
Colette Brooks www.BioBling.com cbrooks@bigla.com Colette
is devoted to the bio cause and can get you some sweet looking
rides.
Wild Rose Motors - Leonard Harview 800-341-1012
LA BioFuel has sent customers to them...all are happy.
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Getting the most from this newsletter
This newsletter is to serve the interests of all our members.
We can include information from you in the newsletter that is
directed toward the goals of the club. If you are an activist and
have events and announcements let us know. If you find resources
or information that might be interesting for the group send it in. If
you have a request to find something get in touch. This is a way
for all of us to connect and to find lots of ways to help create a
cleaner and more sustainable future together.
The Sustainable Transport Club is positioned to link the different
groups interested in various forms of sustainable transport. This
newsletter is one of the vehicles that lets that happen.
The strength of each of our efforts is increased when connected to
all of our efforts.
Just email your info to sustain@rsydney.com to get it into the nest
newsletter. If time is pressing then call 310-450-7419 to see if the
release date can be adjusted.
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Gas users can support Bio Diesel on the Westside
The new Bio-Diesel pumps at the USA gas stations in Marina Del
Rey and in the Pacific Palisades are a great step forward for
renewable fuels on the Westside.
What can a gas user do to support these pumps until we get our
diesel vehicles?
We can use these two stations as much as possible to buy our gas.
When we buy gas at the stations, we can tell the clerk that we are
buying from them because of our concern for bio diesel. Talk up
the bio fuels when you shop at the store etc.
Let them know we are supporting bio fuels with our consumer
dollars even if we have not made out transition to the new fuels -
yet.
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Club building outreach efforts:
Results from the Energy Fair in Palos Verdes May 20th
The Energy fair was a good event. There were many people from
the club there with their own projects including the Plug in
America people, the Bio Beetle folks, Transport Station, Friends 4
Expo, and the LA Bio-diesel co-op. It is starting to feel like we are
having regular club parties to inform our community about
sustainability.
A full booth of light electric vehicles represented the Club with
things from stand up scooters to the new E-max. We had some
good public response and the best part was connecting with some
new groups and activists.
There were several solar energy companies there including the one
that makes Solar Priuss. They get 10 to 20 miles a day from the
solar charge. We are looking at a portable solar charging system
for the electric scooters.
There was a bicycle activist group we connected with called
CIRCLE, see www.circle.org, as well as a connection to a gas
scooter club. With scooters getting 60 plus miles to the gallon they
are definitely on the sustainable radar. We will get them into
electric someday soon as soon as the electric can catch up to
them. Perhaps ethanol might be more readily available.
There was also one booth that had both the Hermosa Hydrogen and
the ethanol users co-op. It seems that lost of cars are able to run
ethanol and that only 300 people are needed to create a viable
ethanol co-op.
It was also good to see the Metro Transit folks turn out in force.
David Dutra was the person who got many of us involved and he
did a great job throughout. Our thanks to David for carrying the
torch and for a job well done.
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Electric Scooter Test Drive results
The new generation of electric scooters is here and preliminary
results are good. The E-max 2000 watt brush-less scooter made its
local dιbut at the April 15th earth-day event and it came at the
same time as other high wattage brush-less motors have made it
here. We have had a chance to test these bikes against each other
and against the established EVT brush motor technology.
Please note these are all real world-testing results. People
weighing from 160 to 205 lbs drove the bikes. The tests were on
real roads. The range tests are for normal driving with stop and go
traffic conditions and hills here on the Westside. The scooters
were operated normally at their full acceleration and full speed.
2000 Watt E-max vs. 2000 Watt brush-less generic
vs. 1500watt Brush motor
Zero to twenty miles an hour
E-max vs generic very close result
E-max with power boost button vs. generic without E-max pulls ahead by 15- 20 yards
Generic 2000 watt vs. EVT 1500 watt in power mode EVT pulls ahead by 10-15 yards
E-max vs. EVT - no test but they should be similar with E-max having a slight edge with power boost
Twenty plus miles an hour
E-max vs generic generic starts to pull ahead around 28 mph and top speed is 2-3 mph better.
E-max with power boost button vs. generic without E-
max pulls ahead up to 27-28 mph then generic takes over. (E-max
has a speed limiting governor that can be removed by those who
want to go against vehicle codes and DOT)
Generic 2000 watt vs. EVT 1500 watt in power mode
Generic pulls ahead starting around 25 mph and can make up for
lost time on long stretches
Hill Climbing
Tested going up the Pico hill at 11th street.
E-max vs generic 2000 watt over the top about the same time and speed.
E-max with power boost button vs. generic without E-max pulls ahead and is over the top at about 10-12 mph faster.
1000-watt operating in the bike lane - best to go around on quiet street
Conclusion the E-max rocks, particularly with that power boost.
That is why we have one being delivered into the area on the next
shipment. EVT is still a good ride with a lower price point.
1000-watt brush less compared to the above.
These are very different scooters. They are more like a fast bicycle
with great lights and brakes that you do not have to pedal. The off
the line is nothing to compare with the more powerful motors and
the top speed is 22-23 mph. The main advantage these have over
the big brothers is price and range. The 1000-watt goes 25 miles
on the same gel cell batteries that the 2000-watt brush-less goes 20
mile on.
The 1000-watt brush less motor has been tested for close to 450
miles and is performing well and reliably. The 2000-watt generic
is from the same vendor and there is a 1500 watt one still in the
box waiting to be tested. These motors are looking good with high
efficiency and good performance.
Battery test results
Gel Cell batteries - close to new condition
1000 watt 26 miles per charge vs.
2000 watt at 20 miles per charge
Gel cells with a year and a half use on brush motors 35 % loss of range
The brush motors are reported to be harder on batteries than the
brush-less motors due to their higher peak amperage demands.
1500-watt brush motors draw close to 80 amps at take off and the
brush-less ones are closer to 50 amps. Brush less motors should
allow longer battery life with less degradation of range.
Brush Motor 1500 watt vs. Brush-less 2000-watt motor
17% lower range for brush motor one test comparison only.
Silicone Batteries - 1500-watt generic brush-less motor 29 miles
one test in regular city stop and go driving. A second test with
the bike running full throttle 80% of the time got a range of 26
mile. This means going 35 miles an hour most of the time. That
speed reduced the mileage by ten percent. More testing is planned.
E-max reports ranges from 30 to 40 miles on these batteries, which
seems reasonable given this one test on a generic motor and that
was on a brand new scooter out of the box. Batteries seem to get
stronger after 3-10 charges. This scooter has a new controller and
more tests will be forthcoming. We will also have test results from
the new E-max that will be in town soon.
Conclusions so far.
Brush-less motors are the way to go and the silicone batteries are
looking good. With a range of over 30 miles that puts the bikes
well into the world of alternative transportation. Even the 26 mile
range on a gel cell is good for most local uses.
There are various test bikes and brand new scooters available for
sale right now including the E-max 2000 watt sport. Please get in
touch if you are interested. Russell 310-450-7419. When are you
going to get beyond curiosity and into being a bigger part of the
solutions?
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