On the road!

A quick jot around the neighbourhood to see if it let out any magic smoke: none. Back to the garage to 'work out' a bit of a snag on the clutch/firewall with the 6oz sheet-metal adjustment tool. We also installed the bargraph voltmeters I had cooked up: http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dhmzznh8_6g795t582

We hit the road again to get the car up to speed: the design goal is twice 15miles @ 60mph per day, with charging at work in between.

I was a bit excited, so didn't note anything with any scientific rigour, but while cruising it seems to draw less than 100amps at 60mhp on 144V of Deka 8G31 gels sagged to 130V -- and that's with flattish tires and 14F temperatures. This comes out to 100A*130V/60mph = 217Whr/mile at the pack, which is looking very good.

It climbed onto the highway on-ramp without any problems and we merged in at speed and had no problem keeping up. We also had no trouble maintaining speeds of 40mph on city hills (I could have been accelerating up the hill).

So the next step is to cart it back from Richards (90 miles from my home), get it inspected, and start using it for my commute: hopefully before earth hour strikes this year.