In this final stage of the conversion process, I'll be transporting the car to Auckland (4.5 hours drive north) to have it's final inspection done. After that, it will finally be roadworthy. That is of course if it passes the inspection! I can't see any reason why it would fail but it's not up to me. I'll be having the car certified with John Brett Technology Ltd on the premises of VINZ which is located in Mt Wellington, Auckland. Because EV's are a rare thing in NZ, there are only a handful of garages nationwide that can inspect and certify electric vehicles so there's no way out of the big haul to Auckland!
A vehicle transporter has been booked to take the Tredia up to Auckland on the 29th of January. This will give me enough time to do my own final inspection and tweak anything that needs a good tweaking!
Even though the car isn't yet certified, it still managed to end up in the local paper - again! This time it was the Taranaki Daily News, which is the big paper in this region. The article not only paints the car in a favourable light, but it makes me look like the country's EV messiah, which I'm certainly not! :) I had trouble fitting my head through the door after reading that article that's for sure! You can read it by clicking the photo at the top of the page.
While officially there's nothing left to do, I did get around to replacing the adhesive foam strips in the rear battery box. These strips seal the top and bottom sections of the battery box to prevent gas from escaping into the boot while charging. Another EV fan pointed out that the rules say the sealant must be non-porous. This had me thinking for some time, how do I find a non-porous foam!? But then someone suggested a strip of hollow rubber tube. So I did one better, I found a hollow silicon rubber tube! This means it'll handle high temperatures and fire better than foam or standard rubber. It should help keep the inspector happy!
I replaced the little foam "blob" inside the gas cap that presses against the contactor cut-off switch after I noticed it stopped clicking occasionally. Turns out the soft foam pad I was using to press the cutoff switch inwards was starting to get spongy and soft. This time I used a little piece of wood stuck to the inside of the gas cap. It took a little fiddling but now the contactor circuit is closed every time you close the gas cap without worry. It's little things like this I go around tweaking while waiting for the big inspection.
To kill more time until the car transporter arrives and whisks my e-baby away to Auckland, I gave the car a complete polish from top to bottom.
I even shined up the tyres and bumpers. Veronika took care of the inside of the car while I went crazy with a bottle of polish on the outside.
It's summer here in January and the heat makes it an unpleasant job in our piping hot garage but I'm glad I did it. The car smells like grape now too. :)
Soon enough, the car transporter arrived and picked up the Tredia. It's the first time the car's been away after 8 months of having it the garage and I feel a bit weird about it. I open the garage and there's nothing there all of a sudden. Still, at least my wife will finally get some long awaited conversation - until I get the car back of course. :)
The collection was a piece of cake. After a 10 second explanation of how to drive the car the transport driver drove it up onto the back of the truck and tied it down. After that it will be transferred to a really really big truck and then it'll head up to Auckland, possibly first thing in the morning. So I now have an empty garage for 4 days until I get up to Auckland myself on Saturday night.
After the Tredia was collected, I decided that it would be a good time to start advertising my gas powered Nissan for sale. I advertised it on a popular NZ auction website and you wouldn't believe it, 3 hours later it was sold!
So now my wife and I are without a car until the Tredia gets certified. That's going to be a long week! People have already asked what I'll do without the gas powered car if I want to drive long distance. Truth is, long distance driving is such a rarity for us that we'll just borrow a car off someone. Rob has offered us his car each time - as long as we give it a wash. :) Thanks Rob!
It's given me a chance to really clean out the garage, and it's given me an even better chance to remove the awful oil stain off the driveway. It does feel weird not having a car though.
I've had a lot of contact from fellow EV converters in NZ asking what the process is when it comes to actually certifying the car for driving on NZ roads. It's a lot harder than in many other countries for some reason. I've put it all here in a simple list to help cut out the confusion:
Step 1: Make sure you pass the Low Volume Vehicle Inspection (where they test everything from the brakes to the battery racks) Cost = $550.
Step 2: If you car is certified safe, then you have a 5 day wait for your little metal "Certification" plate. This must be Installed in the engine bay. (no cost)
Step 3: You then must take your car for a Warrant of Fitness inspection (another inspection all motorists endure every 6 months) Cost = $48 every six months.
Step 4: Renew your car's Registration. Cost = $95 every six months.
Step 5: Fill out an MR16 form and post it to advise the LTSA that your car has changed propulsion type from gas to electricity. (no cost)
Step 6: Pay Road User Charges. This is basically a separate "road tax" that any vehicle running on a non-taxed fuel (electricity/diesel/love) must pay. Cost = $47 per 1000km.
Step 7: Arrange insurance for your car. I will be using NAC Insurance as they were very flexible with the policy and not bankruptingly expensive. Cost = $484 per year.
If you can survive all that red tape, then you're doing well. With all that effort and cost involved, it does make me wonder if the NZ government actually hates automobiles. Maybe the offices of parliament have car themed dart-boards and monthly games of "Pin the tail on the Daewoo" etc. Who knows. At least it'll all be over soon.
I arrived in Auckland a couple of days after the Tredia got there and went about checking last minute things. Lets be honest though, electric cars are so simple I just walked around the car with a multi-meter trying to look important. :)
Before transporting the car I had several emails and phone calls from people who'd been watching the progress of the conversion and who were in Auckland and wanted to see the car in the flesh! People starting arriving and before I knew it the Tredia had around 20 people looking at it throughout the afternoon. Paul Van Dither was one of the many people there and he supplied the photo at the top with everyone looking at the car.
The next day was the big one. The day of inspection was here. I was to be driving the Tredia to the inspection... I drove very cautiously and carefully on the 6 kilometre journey being careful not to waste too many amps.
I got there with several minutes to spare and generally walked around trying to suppress the squadron of butterflies in my stomach.
Soon enough the inspector arrived and went about checking the details of the car.
He started with checking basic things like wheel nuts and suspension height, taking notes and photos all along the way. This is in case things change after the inspection and subsequently ends up causing an accident he has somewhere to fall back on.
He checked movement in the suspension and the condition of the springs as well as the condition of all the brake hoses before moving onto the motor mounts and battery boxes.
Luckily my welder & motor mount maker is also a seatbelt technician, so the mounts and battery racks were built to a great solid standard and the motor was well secured with the total of four chunky mounts holding it in.
After that, we went through the NZ Rules for building an electric car page by page filling out the fields, and checking the equipment in the car such as the circuit breaker, fuses, inertia switch etc etc. It made it a lot easier for me because I'd sent the inspector a DVD of all the KiwiEV "episodes" so far. It gave him a good insight as to how and what has happened over the last 9 months. The inspection would have taken a lot longer if I hadn't have sent him the DVD. That's possibly good advice for other converters out there - take lots of photos and video if you can. It's come in handy for me many times when I need to see just how things used to be connected before I messed them all up. :)
Next step was to put the "Road Test" plates on the back of the car and go up to the weigh-station to check the weight. I'd always assumed the car was only about 100kg over the original weight because it drove so well. Turns out the car weighs 1180 kilograms!
That's exactly 200 kg over the original weight! I was surprised that's for sure because the acceleration is pretty darn good!
Next came the most worrying and yet the most exciting part of the evening - the accelerationy-breaky test. I forget the real name. It's basically where we get the car up to 100km/h, then slam the brakes on to see what happens. This occurs 3 times in a row and must all happen within a certain time frame. The car got up to speed on the motorway without much effort, although we had to battle with the heavy Auckland traffic. Often achieving the legal road speed in Auckland is a bit of a luxury. That said, the car stopped very well according to the inspector and didn't wallow around at all, even with the extra battery weight in the boot (trunk).
The only problem we encountered was trying to fast-change from 2nd to 3rd gear on the motorway with no clutch. As you'll be able to see in the video, there was a fair amount of crunching going on. Normally changing gear is easy and quiet - as long as you don't mind waiting a couple of seconds for the motor speed to wind down so you can put it into a higher gear. But we didn't have time as we were trying to get up to 100km/h in Auckland traffic!
The batteries needed a rest after all that high-amperage, high-speed, hilly driving so we jumped on an off-ramp and went back via the motorway to the vehicle testing station. We then went over the paperwork and came out with the final verdict.
Four nervous hours later, I'm happy to say that the electric Tredia passed all these tests with flying colours! The inspector himself said how delighted he was to have someone follow all the rules and put so much effort in. That made my day! I drove the car back home and plugged it in. It'd been a big day, covering about 35 kilometres (21 miles) of hard and fast driving. The car sure needed a rest.
That afternoon I called the transport company and made a booking to take the car back to New Plymouth for it's last inspection (yes there's one more). The next inspection is called a Warrant of Fitness, which is the standard inspection all in New Zealand have every 6 months. These are much shorter inspections that check the condition of your tyres, windscreen, brakes, seatbelts, exhaust (hehehe) and rust. They are however, quite tough and merciless. Rust is the big concern as even a fingernail-sized rust-hole means you're off the road until it's repaired - properly. Gulp...
I had the car booked in for it's Warrant of Fitness on Friday the 8th of February. I drove the car carefully to the testing station being mindful not to waste too many amps. Driving the car "economically" still requires a bit of thought but I'll get used to it in time. So I rolled up to have the car inspected. For some foolish reason I actually expected it to pass with flying colours, just like the big inspection a few days earlier. Silly me... The car failed for two reasons. Firstly, the driver's side headlight was aiming too high and had no clip to hold the bulb in, and secondly the passenger-side front brake caliper has just started sticking. This means the brake gets hot while driving and (more importantly for me) reduces my range and economy. I expect this is due to the inactivity over the past few months then all of a sudden it's getting the workout of it's life.
The Warrant of Fitness inspector (the same guy who built the battery racks) is a fair inspector and he's just doing his job. Approving a car with a brake fault could come back to haunt him. Besides, I'd have failed the car too if I were in his shoes. Still, it's a bit of bad luck. It means driving the car this weekend is out of the question.
After hearing my pleas, the inspector offered to come over during the weekend and try to replace the affected brake parts. I sorted out the headlights so that only left the brakes to do. Alan (the WoF inspector) came over on Saturday and got to work sorting out the sticking brake caliper. An hour later it was all sorted and we'd bled the brakes and put the wheel back on. The only thing remaining was to install a shiny new Warrant of Fitness sticker on the windscreen (photo 14).
Next step was to get the registration "unlocked" and put a new registration label on the front of the car. After filling out a wealth of paperwork and paying $95, I was given my shiny new registration label which I mounted in the bottom of the windscreen. My "Road User Charges" (a seperate pay-per-kilometer tax) have started and all that's left to do... is drive it!
I unplugged the car and reversed it down the drive. This time I'm free! I don't have to drive straight to a WoF station or Certifier, I can go wherever I want - the city is mine! So, I decided to take a nice drive past a couple of gas stations and right through the centre of town. All without even a sip of fuel! It felt GREAT!
I must admit though, while driving past one of the Shell gas stations I did feel a bit guilty looking over at all those people filling their tanks when they really didn't have to. Many of them simply don't know electric cars are real and will continue to pay for fuel unnecessarily. I guess it's my job to tell all the other cash strapped people out there how easy it is to convert a car to run on nothing but electricity. If I can do it then anyone can.
With having an electric car, we're left with a small dilemma: what are we supposed to do with the leftover $2080 a year that we won't be spending on gas?
I'd actually thought of this before the project had been completed. My wife and I used to pay between $40 to $50 a week just for our local weekly driving. Now that we're not wasting that money any more, we've decided to put it aside.
What we've come up with is an "Unspent Gas Money" jar!
So each week from this point on we will be putting $40 of our quite hard earned cash into the jar that would have previously gone to an oil company's already-overstuffed wallet.
This means that every six months we can dip into the jar and spend $1040 of re- claimed cash! Sounds like fun!
Our next purchase will be a hot-water-cylinder "wrap" to bring our electricity bill down as we can feel a lot of heat coming off the cylinder (which apparently means we're losing lots of money in wasted heat each month).
After doing some research, with a shiny new hot-water cylinder wrap and with the Tredia plugged in each night, our power bill will still go down!
That's fantastic news! Electric cars can help the environment and save endangered wallets at the same time. :)
So go on, find a donor car and stop paying for gas! Put your gas money in a jar instead!
:)
