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An Interview with Art Haines, Maine’s New Henry Ford? |
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Cont’d from page 3 EVMaine: Can one of your kit vehicles be assembled using only the hand tools in a typical garage or high school shop? Art Haines: Yes. Most people don’t have welding equipment or a machine shop. That’s one of the reasons it has taken so long to make the kits because I have to have everything ready to be bolted together. EVMaine: About how many hours would it take to assemble one of your kits? Art Haines: I don’t know exactly, but I’m telling people eighty hours, but I think it might be quicker, actually. EVMaine: What are your target markets? Art Haines: Well I’ve had the website up for about three months and I guess its probably because of the video that most people want to build it as an educational project. So right now my target market is education. Traditionally education doesn’t have much money, so an adult could pay for the kit, and then use it for educational purposes, and then the adult would end up owning it. EVMaine: So a person buys one, presents it to a school and the students assemble it? Art Haines: They would work with a school where they assemble it, and then the purchaser gets it back when it’s finished. That way the school gets a major educational project, but at zero cost to them, and that is a win-win situation for all concerned. Art Haines: There’s a place down in Tennessee where they’re doing research on alternative fuels, such as bio-fuel, and they would like to get one just for a utility vehicle to use around the facility. EVMaine: Maybe they’ll discover that they’re going in the wrong direction, and start working on electric vehicles. (laughs) Art Haines: Yes. EVMaine: How many passengers can one of your vehicles hold? Art Haines: Two passengers. EVMaine: How far will one of your kit vehicles go on a charge? Art Haines: With three batteries I can get twelve miles reliably out of this first vehicle, but we’re going to go to four batteries for the kits, so if you do the arithmetic it should have a range of 16 miles. As I said earlier we’re going to regenerative braking on the motor and controller so maybe we can squeeze some more range out. I’m really excited about that. EVMaine: I have read that you can get as much as 30% more range with regenerative braking, so at least some extension of the range should be expected. EVMaine: Could more batteries be added to extend its range? Art Haines: A lot of people email me about that, and you could add more batteries to extend the range, but by doing so you add more weight. So if you add more weight you may want to stiffen up the frame a little bit and now you have more weight again, so I think if you need more range you should probably just go to a dinosaur-fuel vehicle, and keep the electric for shorter-range trips. EVMaine: How much does one of your vehicles weigh? Art Haines: With four batteries it will weigh about four hundred pounds, without the riders. EVMaine: And will it go up hills? Art Haines: That’s why we’re going to 48 volts to make it go up the hills better. Now on steep hills it slows down to 15 mph, and I want it to go to a minimum of 20 mph up the hills, and 25 mph on the level. EVMaine: Does it have a transmission? Art Haines: DC motors traditionally spin very fast, up to 4,000 rpm and you’ve got to reduce the speed to get it to a usable rpm for the wheels, so it has a transmission, actually a gear reduction, that lowers the speed. EVMaine: Is that a two-speed? Art Haines: The prototype had a two-speed transmission, but we never used low speed because the speed of the vehicle was zero to only 25, so the motor has a flat enough torque curve so that you don’t need a two speed transmission. The new kits will be one speed, but it will have a helical gear reduction to bring the rpm down to a usable speed. Helical gears are used because they are quieter than straight-cut gears.
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