Before I head out to the garage, I will update on the Mazda 3 as well.

The Mazda 3 took the Saturn's place in the garage and I immediately set about removing the engine, the exhaust and the fuel tank. We needed to get to it as quickly as possible because we are switching to a digital design process for our work.

With the engine out and the transmission separated from it, we can now use our digitizing arm to grab all of the important points on the transmission. That has allowed us to design our adapter plate more easily and will allow us to store this transmission information for future use should anybody need a 2008 Mazda 3 adapter.

Well, the Mazda 3 arrived last night. our client drove it in from Houston and dropped it off at my house and then I took him up to Eastside Cafe to meet his parents for dinner. It was nice meeting them and seeing how supportive they were of his submitting this brand new car to the EV treatment.

I tried to take some pics of it last night, but those didn't work out. Here's one that I took this morning.

Well, our next project should be arriving on Thursday or Friday. We are really looking forward to getting started on the design. Our next client has chosen to do a 2008 Mazda 3 which is a great little car. It already uses electric power steering so that is one big piece that we won't have to work out.

Even cooler is that he wants to invest in Lithium. So... we have been searching for some good pricing on advanced batteries. At this point, with the manufacturer that we have been talking to, his budget will cover a roughly 65 mile range at 60 mph to 80% DOD. That will give him roughly 82 miles "emergency" range if he takes the pack all the way down. (Which you DO NOT want to do) If he drives even more conservatively, things look even better, but he definitely needs to be able to get on the freeway. Top speed should be well over 80 mph (but that would reduce the range a bit...[grin]).