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It was a long drive of about 20 miles from Concord to the location that turns new cars like the Toyota Yaris, Smart4Two, Mini Cooper and Pontiac Vibe gasoline burning vehicles into a much quieter, less polluting and more efficient battery powered electric vehicle.

EV Innovations (EVII, stock symbol abbreviation) manufacturing and development facility, located in Mooresville, NC off Interstate 77 exit 36 is in a 40,000 sq/ft building near many of the famous race teams of NASCAR.

Wayne Gerdes had set up a testing and review session of some of the BEVs that EV Innovations had built. He had invited some of the cleanmpg members to accompany him for the day.

I arrived early and met Skwyre7 (Michael) in the front office who informed me that Wayne and the rest would be running late, I was not surprised as Wayne had showed up at my house last year for Thanksgiving dinner at 10PM. His speed though slow is consistent, efficient and predictable. :p

When all cleanmpg members arrived we introduced ourselves to our hosts at EVII. Present were xcel, bestmapman, slowhands, Kacey Green, seftonm, skywyre7 and myself. They gave us a good 45 minutes of background on their company, where they were in developing their Inizio and Wave cars and where they wanted to be in the next five years with regards to batteries, battery controllers, transmissions and electric motors.

Interestingly they designed their EV system prior to the design of the body and chassis of the vehicle that they wished to put it in, where companies like Tesla Motors designed the car and then developed the drivetrain to fit the car. EVII has given careful thought to the overall package that they put their name upon. They have spent over 50 million dollars and many thousands of hours making sure that they have created a safe, reliable and exciting product for whoever is lucky enough to purchase one of their cars, whether it is a conversion or one of their all original cars like the Inizio or the Wave to be mass produced in the near future.

They described their showcase car's capabilities, the Inizio, it has a top speed of 170mph and can go 0 to 60 in 4 seconds. It's torque is rated at 600+ft/lb and is described as "The Worlds Fastest Electric Supercar".

EVII's Wave looks remarkably like the Aptera 2e from Aptera motors based in California. The Wave's main visual difference is that it's front wheels are fully enclosed within it's body and full front fender skirts. It will be available in both 3 and 4 wheel configurations, we were able to see the 2 door 2 seat 4 wheel version in it's completed state and an imcompleted rolling chassis for the three wheeled version. The Wave will be available as a 2 door, 2 seat 3 and 4 wheel, a 2 door 4 seat 4 wheel and finally a 2 door 2 seat 4 wheel truck version. The 3 wheel version will be classified as a motorcycle.

Some of the conversion vehicles like the EVII Toyota Yaris have the ability to travel 160 miles on a charge using their improved computer programming which is up from their earlier efforts of 120 miles per charge. They are operating within a lower range of battery usage than what other competitors will allow in order to achieve the 100+ miles per charge that most companies claim. They feel theirs is a more truthful claim to distance than many of their competitors and state that a 7 to 10 year battery life is within expectations. They have on staff chemists who specialize in their battery development and various equipment to test and rate batteries developed for them by outside inventors who hope to put their batteries in EVII's cars one day.

EV Innovations puts a lot of time into safety and reliability of the components that they install into their cars. They won't install an EV system into a vehicle that isn't considered new, they want to be sure that the vehicle that they convert is sound in all of it's original parts, with this assurance they provide a 2 year bumper to bumper warranty with all of their conversion vehicles.

If you want to purchase an EVII vehicle right now you can only buy it through EVII directly at sales@evinnovations.com but dealership opportunities will be available in the future.

The first year of mass production will hope to provide 600 vehicles and 1800 new vehicles the following year.

As I didn't drive any of the BEVs I can't give an informed opinion on the handling and power of their vehicles but as a passenger in the Inizio, the Pontiac Vibe and the Mini Cooper I came away with a big grin each time and the hope that I will see all of these cars on the road soon. :D - Dale

Thanks to EV Innovations Inc. for showing us the future in automobiles.
Thanks for the opportunity to come along with you, Wayne!
Thanks to everyone from cleanmpg who came so far to see EVII.
Thanks for lunch, Skwyre7.
Thanks to seftonm for showing me how to drive and helping me get my first 50+ mpg tank, I think I'm on my way to a consecutive 2nd 50mpg tank.

I'll add pictures later, it's late/early.

I see that they are using lithium batteries. Any hint what kind of lithium chemistry, or is that proprietary?

Thanks for lunch, Skwyre7.
No problem. The view was beautiful (the lake and the waitresses ;)).

I've got a bunch of pictures as well. (Photobucket album) (http://s92.photobucket.com/albums/l23/Skwyre7/Pictures/EV%20Innovations/?albumview=slideshow&track=share_email_album_view_click)

At some point, I'll get my write-up completed. It's been a crazy busy week so far!

Note: I can't view Photobucket from work, so if the link doesn't work, let me know. I can fix it this afternoon.

The link works just fine -- thanks! That's a nice set of images. :)

I see that they are using lithium batteries. Any hint what kind of lithium chemistry, or is that proprietary?

lightfoot,
Wayne and others fielded all the intelligent questions and could answer this better than me. I asked questions like "Can I ride in the Inizio?" "Could I come back and use the Inizio for pizza delivery?". These questions needed to be addressed and I felt like the public deserved an answer! The answers were Yes and No respectively, it was a success in my world.
:D - Dale

http://lh5.ggpht.com/_DOGYFgXgyJQ/Sih2mabXmmI/AAAAAAAAAg8/jEPSQklIuIA/s512/IMG_2088.JPG
Photo by seftonm

I see that they are using lithium batteries. Any hint what kind of lithium chemistry, or is that proprietary?

IIRC, the battery chemistry is proprietary info. When we got to see the "chemistry" department, they were a little careful of what we could take pictures of. Truth be told, they were still setting a lot of things up (due to a relocation), so it was mainly testing instrumentation.

If this trend keeps up, maybe cars shaped like mine will become the norm rather than the exception. I see it has the low "deer scoop" nose shape, which should help to minimize car body damage (and deer injuries) for those encountering Bambi on the highway (and provide a surprise for tailgaters). Since the front axle area is rather wide and the front wheel well skirts look like they are fastened in place, they appear to have taken the Schlorr car approach of having the front wheels indoor far enough to be able to turn lock to lock while remaining within the body of the car. Too bad it doesn't have a rear window. While a video rear view system is fine, its nice to be able to turn your head and look out a window to make sure that the way is clear, especially when parallel parking where having some depth perception to your vision can be useful.

It was great to meet everyone there, keep up the awesome work with your Metro, Dale. My write-ups are coming together slowly but surely, this weekend I hope to have some free time to get them finished up. In the meantime, my pictures from EV Innovations are now online at http://picasaweb.google.com/seftonm/EvInnovations#

I finally got my review completed. Wayne asked for a couple paragraphs, but these vehicles deserved a little bit more. ;) Here it is:

I had the opportunity not only to visit EV Innovations, but to get some behind-the-wheel time with two of their BEV’s – the LiV Wise (Yaris 3-door) and the Liv Flash (Mini Cooper). Both of these vehicles were converted to 2-seaters, making them great for commuter vehicles.

My overall impressions were very good, though there were some complaints. The Yaris seemed unfinished. The acceleration happened in three phases. There was a bit of play in the accelerator that resulted in no acceleration. Once the pedal was pressed in a little further (to the equivalent of feathering the Prius), the car moved. The acceleration was not linear, however. The car began to pick up speed slowly at first, and then increased the rate of acceleration until you got to about 10 mph, where the rate of acceleration leveled off. Or so I thought. At 35 mph, an extra boost of acceleration surprised me. This “downshift acceleration” was repeatable at about 35 mph. For the average driver, this could be useful for merging on the interstate. This type of acceleration was not evident on the Mini. The Mini’s acceleration was steady and quick! Just a slight press of the pedal would result in the car zooming off. I may have left a little bit of rubber when starting off the first time. This quicker acceleration may be due to the idle-creep mechanism in the Mini. The Yaris had no such mechanism, so hill starts were necessary on steep inclines. This was made even more necessary due to the play in the pedal.

Once the vehicles were moving down the road, both vehicles were quiet, obviously. Road noise was a little more audible in the Yaris. The Yaris also had a noisy brake pedal. It felt slightly sticky, so it could just need a little lubrication. The A/C compressor in the Mini was almost loud. It wasn’t as loud as road noise in a normal vehicle however. The A/C was not tested in the Yaris, so I don’t know if this was only an issue in the Mini.

One great feature in the Yaris was the regenerative braking on-off switch. When regen was off, the glides went on forever. Pulse to glide to pulse transitions were seamless. When the regen was on, however, the transitions were very rough. The Mini did not have the option to disable regen. The transitions from pulse to regen-glide to pulse were noticeable, but not rough. Feathering the pedal in the Mini was possible to cancel the regen. Another option was shifting to N. This was possible at low speeds (tested below 40 mph). The D to N and N to D transitions were very soft. Since the vehicles were drive-by-wire, the movement of the shifter was minimal. In the Mini, care must be taken when pulsing since any pressure on the accelerator beyond feathering resulted in brisk acceleration (sometimes more than required).

Both vehicles have an LCD screen to display trip meters, power meters, etc. The battery definitely takes a hit when A/C, heat, or defrost is on. The LCD in the Yaris had some issues, however. The OEM speedometer was correct (according to my GPS), but the LCD was reading low. This resulted in the trip meter being incorrect. The power meter never changed either; however SOC did change as we drove around. The LCD in the Mini seemed to work fine, although I do not know if the arrows showing current flow changed direction when braking (like in a Prius).

Overall both vehicles were wonderful. The Yaris has some great features, like the ability to turn off regen. However, compared to the Mini, the Yaris seemed less polished (though it is almost $20k less expensive). The Yaris accelerator was too spongy, but the Mini was too tight. But both vehicles had plenty of acceleration for normal driving situations. Either one would be ideal for commuting, running errands around town, or taking short road trips, as long as you only had to transport two people. Even though I need a back seat for a car seat, I would be the proud owner of either of these two BEV’s, especially if they fix some of the bugs I mentioned.

Man! Wish I'd known this was going on. I would have whipped up from Charlotte for the opportunity.
Great review and pics, guys!

Hi Mike:

___We are still working on the review in the draft forum and just waiting on the vids to put it all together ;)

___Good Luck

___Wayne