Australia:Hunter Valley EV Festival - August 2012

Just found a new website for this years event, 16-26th August 2012.

http://www.hunterevfestival.net/

This was a great show last year, includes a distance competition around a kart track.

Unfortunately this years competition rules exclude LiPo batteries - I suspect the insurance companies are to blame for that. However they have also included a weight limit for batteries, which means lead won't be competitive either. Looks like LiFePO4 is the go.

After last years success, team Grinmore Pedaless might try an entry in the two-seat division this year.

Here's a thread about the 2011 event for reference:
http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=33113#p481155

I'm just looking that web, seems interesting. I wish i had an ev festival here.
Will you participate?

I'm keen for this....im lipo only though, so I guess I'll just watch/show off the bling... If my bike gets built in the next 6 months...stranger things have happened.....

No LiPo. That sucks. Escpeially in conjunction with the $ limit on batteries. Basically forces you in to using old technology.
Not what I thought this event should be about. Oh well.

bumpety!

this is on in about 5 weeks so I just thought I'd freshen up the thread a little...

I'm going to be driving up from Syd. to lurk about for Sat, Sun 25th and 26th...not competing, but definately spectating.

I know there's another thread running that details folks's plans for it but meh. It's soo unlike Endless sphere to have 2 or 3 threads on the one subject. :lol:

Unfortunately for out-of-towners, the festival is split over two consecutive weekends. The static displays are on Saturday 18th (I think Sutho's electric Delorean will be there). Racing is on Sunday 26th. If any ES'ers make it to the festival, be sure to say hello at the Grinmore Pedaless tent either day, send me a PM beforehand too.

My A123 + dual-Bafang powered two-seater is slowly taking shape:


There's some more photos of it here:
http://www.hunterevfestival.net/category/ev-prize-blogs/grinmore-pedaless/

Only a couple of days to go now

I'm in the Macquarie College team Grinhill, we came 4th last year. I saw your 2 seater on saturday and it was looking pretty sweet. Do you have any stability issues? It looked pretty tall and narrow.

Good Luck for sunday....obviously I can say that because your not in the same division as me hahaha

The dollar cap on the batteries is a really bad way to make a distance race. To be fair they should be using kwh as a limit, strange all those smart people running the event would have a distance event where theres no even playing field. I'll be discussing it with the folks that run it, I think others should also make it clear that its not a good way to run a distance event. I cant think of a worse way to do it!
Even if they just went on ahr and voltage rating would be better. I'm surprised they didn't change the $200cap after last year, they really need input from the competitors on this.
I think there should be a speed race also, maybe just 3 to 5 laps see who does it fastest, would be exciting, would be hard to beat the electric motor bikes.
They are worried about cobalt and manganese lithiums mainly if there is an accident ( lilo and lipo.......as termed on rc chargers), which I agree with they are quite dangerous unless you use cell logs or some other monitor.

how did the festival go guys? I didn't land up going. Any high speed crashes ( or low speed!)

Well there were a couple of offs in the schools division, to be expected I suppose with 21 entries on a tight winding track. Paramedics were on standby though.

We were the only entry in the Dual Seat division, so won Pole Position and Endurance race :lol:

I didn't manage to get my bike running on the day, so I missed out on the Open Division race.

Some very close racing in the schools division, Hunter Christian School won.

A great day had by all.

Here's our Grinmore Pedaless Dual Seater - top speed was 45 km/h. Need more volts!!!

thanks for update, well done on the vehicle too, alot of effort no doubt went into it.
hope there is 2 seat competitor for you next year