This is a re-send of my posting to the EAA-PHEV discussion group:
http://www.eaa-phev.org/wiki/Maillist

Ryan Fulcher's car is now the world's ninth Plug-In Hybrid Prius (see
list below).
At 10:10 PM tonight, the car ran electrically for a significant
distance with no problems. We were pretty confident it would work,
but we're very relieved!

Our team had an ambitious goal: to condense what took us many months
into a weekend. Finishing within the Maker Faire's two public days
was an arbitrary goal. Talking to the thousands of people who came by
with questions was also important. Finishing to get Ryan back to
Seattle was necessary!

Much of the preparation work happened in the weeks before, especially
the circuit boards. The core team --
Sherry Boschert, Mike Brown, Tom Driscoll, Ryan Fulcher, Marc Geller,
Ron Gremban, Amanda Kovattana, Steven S. Lough, Shari Prange, Nick
Rothman, Mike Sasnett (profiled at
<http://www.calcars.org/makerfaireteam.html>) --
worked about 8 hours on Saturday and 9 hours on Sunday. After the
Faire closed to the public, the hard-core -- Tom, Marc, Ron, Steve,
stayed until about 10:30. Then they relocated to Ron's garage in
Corte Madera. Tom Driscoll worked straight through on mechanical
prep. These four reassembled in the morning and kept going all day. I
kept getting reports that they were getting close. But as everything
got installed, wired, tested, and as the team worked to ensure that
parts wouldn't or short out under any likely circumstance, the hours
stretched out (asymptotically -- that's what happens when engineering
designs are implemented into physical layouts, and its hard to
predict how long it will take to get everything right).

You'll get more details in the next few days as they recover! Then
the Electric Auto Association-PHEV group <http://www.eaa-phev.org>
will work to bring people into the next phase of the project:
documenting all that was done, turning that into an instruction
manual, arranging to package as many of the components as possible in
ways that make possible conversions.

Based on what we just did, we think with some additional pre-made
components, it will be realistic for an individual owner of a
2004-2006 Prius with no technical skills to budget under $3,000 for
materials, enlist the help (volunteer or paid) of an engineer or
electrician (one person with experience working with high voltages is
a NECESSITY), and then for these two people to complete the
conversion in about one vacation week.

Thanks to all the people who helped at Maker Faire and behind the scenes.
Many of groups that helped are listed at
<http://www.calcars.org/partners.html>.
For a summary of all the conversion options for Prius, see:
<http://www.calcars.org/conversions-factsheet.pdf> (which has been
downloaded over 500 times since we revised it a few weeks ago).

Felix

Prius Conversions Chronology
1. CalCars PRIUS+/Ron Gremban by Ron Gremban, EnergyCS and CalCars
team, Fall 2004
2. EnergyCS by Greg Hanssen, Pete Nortman and team, March 2005
3. Energy CS/Clean-Tech by EnergyCS, May 2005
4. Amberjac Projects Ltd UK, by EnergyCS/Amberjac, September 2005
5. Hymotion by Hymotion, February 2006
6. Electro Energy by CalCars and Electro Energy, March 2006
7. South Coast Air Quality Management District by EnergyCS, March 2006
8. CalCars/Felix Kramer by EnergyCS, April 2006
9. Ryan Fulcher of Seattle Electric Auto Association by CalCars and
Maker Faire team, April 22-24
Coming soon:
10-11. Sacramento Municipal Utility District and City of Santa Monica
by EnergyCS

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Felix Kramer fkramer@...
Founder California Cars Initiative
http://www.calcars.org
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/calcars-news
http://www.hybridcars.com/blogs/power
http://www.bettah.org
http://www.eaa-phev.org
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