Saabrina The Electric Saab Runs!

Posted on 11. Feb, 2008 by Ryan in 2000-2009

saabrina electric Saabrina The Electric Saab Runs!

saab ng900 thumbnail Saabrina The Electric Saab Runs!

Mark Ward, of St. Charles, Missouri has now finally got his project â€œSaabrinaâ€, the electric Saab NG900 actually running and completely driveable! We’ve all been closely watching his project and this is by far a milestone.

I think Saab should send him a prize or something here, this is truly a first for a Saab Enthusiast to get a NG900 fully driveable on electric power.

Congratulations Mark!!!

Here is what he has to say in his own words and please visit his website for updates to this incredible project!

Video Credit: David Livingston WBÃ˜RAB

Saabrina The Electric Saab Runs!

It couldn’t have been a much better day than yesterday, at least for February. Temperatures in the 50′s and a slightly chilly breeze, but a good day nonetheless for a test drive! Since my last post, the battery cables have been installed as well as a lot of the other necessary wiring. I decided it would be as good a time as any to do a road test to find out how the Saab would run. Some of my friends from the St. Charles Amateur Radio Club wanted to see the debut and take some photos and videos of the Saab’s first day out of the Garage, so I invited them over for the occasion. I have to admit I cheated! Before the photos you see here I made a short run through my subdivision (1 mile on the odometer). Remembering that a lot of rockets turned over on the launch pad in the 60′s it seemed good to spare myself the shame of having things not work.

I made it out of my rather steep driveway with a lot of ease and decided I would take the chance and go on a short drive. The Saab picked up speed going down the hill near my house and I whipped around a few side streets checking out the brakes and power steering. All of those worked perfectly as expected. The speedometer and odometer came to life and recorded my new first EV mile in the process.

Photo Credit: David Livingston WBÃ˜RAB Caption:
Jimmy Miller KGÃ˜KP (left) looks on as I explain the PWM motor controller

There are plenty of issues that still need to be fixed. Right now the motor stops turning when you take your foot off the pedal. With an automatic such as mine it loses hydraulic pressure and tells the transmission computer that the engine has stalled. I found this out at a stop sign when I tried to take off again without reshifting from N back to D1. After that I headed back to the house, taking the hill on the way back up at over 30 miles per hour with no difficulty. It would have been bad to get caught speeding in my new EV with no license plates!

The 144 volt meter is erratic (picking up noise) and all over the place so I couldn’t monitor the pack voltage, but battery current hit 200 amps for short intervals of time. The heater works. The DC-DC converter was putting out 13.8 volts keeping my front battery charged and running all accessories, and more importantly, the motor starts immediately with no problems at all

The traction pack with main cables and independent regulators. Each regulator is calibrated to prevent over or under-charging any individual battery. The charger is the box with the fan top left.
The batteries are Carquest NGT AGM type. They require no watering and don’t vent hydrogen gas or leak acid.

Saabrina The Electric Saab Runs!

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Photos on flickr