Vogue passes 20,000km

I meant to stop and snap a picture when the Vogue hit 20,000 electric kilometers but it slipped by without me noticing. I only realised this morning when I took my standard picture so that I could update the daily charging spreadsheet.
(Sorry for the hand reflection.)

Range Improving for Summer

It's been a long winter - not too wet but colder for longer.
The Vogue range is returning to 80+km. With four nine 17 charges recorded for October it's looking good. It's unusual for August to be similar temperatures to June and July in Melbourne.

The Vogue is up to 18937 electric kilometers.

(Image and numbers updated 30th Oct 2015)

The Story of Stuff

31st-Aug-2016. Rusdy left a comment for another great site that I'll link to here.
http://ourrenewablefuture.org/

The Vogue awaits an Engine in 2004

I stumbled across this picture taken on the 30th November 2004.
The Vogue sits patiently in the backyard waiting for an engine that doesn't need the head gasket changed every year. (I got the idea for electric in 2008.)

FCR Motion Technology in Melbourne, the local Lenze agent,  have been absolutely no help whatsoever.

Midwinter 2015 range

Ah winter is here again. Range down to around 73km for 80% depth of discharge.
This pic (taken once I got home again) was from a bad day with the drive to work starting out at 4 degrees C.

Strange Vogue Picture

I was on the way to work yesterday and a strange site caught my eye.

Can't see it?  I'm not surprised - you probably had to be sitting on stationary traffic and bored to notice.


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The shape of the Mazda rear hatch door turned the Vogue front view into a cartoon-like image.

The Mazda hatch must be more a triangle shape (in plan view) rather than a gentle curve.

Shrinking Weatherstrip

The strip that wipes the outside of the winding windows was sourced new for the Vogue when I re-fitted the winding windows. Referred to as door glass weatherstrip and a few other names,
I purchased mine in Australia and it appears similar to what is available at a few places here.
Unlike the original it has no reinforcing metal strip.

Trouble is - it shrinks!

Note also the waving lines where the clips are holding it inside the door.

The Vogue has "seen" two summers in active use now and the driver door weatherstrip is now about 22mm shorter than when I installed it.
The passenger side is a little better, but not much. The driver side is exposed to the Sun more than the passenger side and it shrunk first over the summer of 2013/2014 by about 15mm. (January/February is the peek of summer here.)

I have finally found something like the original with the metal strip buried in it and have ordered some from the UK.
I get the feeling that most Classic car restorations sit in garages most of the time and are not exposed to the weather much.

All's well for start of 2015

There's not much going on with the Vogue at the moment. It's my daily driver to and from work and is completely reliable. I do have to keep a check for charger failures but they seemed to have settled down. We are not getting the 40 degree days that are typical of this time of year so the Vogue is very pleasant to drive. The odometer reads just over 13000km.

Once minor change a few days ago is that I implemented a regenerative braking "boost". I have regen. set at the maximum I think is safe to run for wet roads etc. but every now and then, mainly when slowing down for a right turn lane, I'd like a bit more. (I also have it set so I don't exceed 2C to the batteries.) Now, when I press the reverse-interlock pushbutton on the dash, the regen. ramps up to 200% what I normally run. The ramp is over a 1 second period.

I don't seem to need to use it more than a couple of times a week but it's nice not to waste the energy with mechanical brakes.

Hi to the folks in France who seemed to have topped the Vogue blog page views last week.
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