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Every time Nikki walked up to our F-150 Lightning, the custom board she designed rebooted. She'd accidentally built an antenna - and that wasn't even the whole problem.

Project Mellon is a DIY CAN bus gadget that makes our WOLFBOX SmartSlide powered tonneau cover smarter: it locks the cover while the truck's in gear, unlocks it with the truck, and opens it from the HomeLink visor. In this video: the no-splice custom loom so many of you asked about (built on the trailer brake module's STAC64 connector), a premature victory lap, and the 100 nF capacitor that finally squished the bug.

Should Mellon become a product, an open-source project, or stay a one-off? Tell us in the comments - Nikki can't decide if it's worth it or not!

⏱️ Chapter Breakdown:

00:00 - Introduction

💍 Project Mellon: The Fellowship Of The Cover

Mentioned in this video

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Host, Script, Editor: Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield

Back in 2010, Transport Evolved was a little live panel show recorded every Sunday from a tiny house just north of Bristol in the UK - just Nikki and Mike Boxwell picking through the week's EV news for an hour. In 2013 came TEN - Transport Evolved News - which was supposed to be a ten-minute news show. (It is not a ten-minute news show.)

Sixteen years later, we've just hit 600 episodes of TEN, and in a couple of videos' time we'll pass 3,000 videos on this channel. So while Nikki recovers from a nasty bout of "not con crud", we went crawling through the archives - right down to the Blu-ray discs burned just before moving to the States - to look back at where we came from.

There's the very first TEN from September 2013, Mark's Marks and a double fried egg, chili and chutney sandwich, a Tesla Model S road trip from Oslo back to the UK, a night on a 1907 sailing ship, Robert Llewellyn, a whole lot of cars you might have forgotten ever existed - and footage that has never aired before.

If you've been with us for any of the past 16 years: thank you. (And maybe get a new hobby.) Here's to 1,000 episodes!

⏱️ Chapter Breakdown:

00:00 - From the archives

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Disclaimer: We received the Powerbase65 conversion kit from Martin at Martin Rebuilds in order to help us bring you this first-person installation review as part of a two-part collaboration. In exchange, we'll be sending Martin our Mellon Board when it's completed!

The Ford F-150 Lightning electric pickup truck offers a lot of everyday practical versatility, and even though it's no longer made, owners and enthusiasts are still finding ways of improving on the truck's factory spec.

At this channel, we've made some of our own improvements, and we've got a long list of things we've got planned - including an upfitter harness, functional fog lights, and of course, our in-house designed Mellon Board.

But when it comes to the 12-volt starter battery, we've had a slew of bad luck. Our truck's first battery died. The replacement from Ohmmu didn't work as intended, and the expensive OEM replacement our local dealership fitted after that hasn't fared much better.

Today, we try to fix it once and for all thanks to @MartinRebuilds-fz1ep! Martin has designed a custom battery tray and conversion kit that's just gone on sale for $159.95 (free shipping to the continental US), letting you swap the underpowered H3 battery for a much larger, more readily-available Group 65 battery.

https://martinrebuilds.com/products/f-150-lightning-battery-tray-adapter

⏱️ Chapter Breakdown:

00:00 - Introduction

Video Links:

Martin Rebuilds PowerBase65 Adapter: https://martinrebuilds.com/products/f-150-lightning-battery-tray-adapter

Martin Rebuilds YouTube ChanneL https://www.youtube.com/@MartinRebuilds-fz1ep

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Disclaimer - Transport Evolved received this motorcycle free of charge from HMP Bikes in order to allow us to give you a long-term staff-vehicle review. No money exchanged hands for the review itself, and no editorial control was given or implied. HMP Bikes sees our reviews when you do. Nikki is providing ongoing honest feedback to HMP bikes in addition to producing this series.

[Editorial note]: We called the bike "Leizi" — a name English-language sources give for the Chinese goddess of lightning. She's properly 電母, Diànmǔ, "Mother of Lightning," wife of Leigong, god of thunder. Right goddess, wrong name. Thanks to Peter at HMP for the catch, and we'll be using the proper name (電母, Diànmǔ) in the future!

Back at the tail end of August, we introduced you to our newest vehicle - an HMP Lightning Mk II. It's a highway-capable scooter with an official top speed of 56 mph, a claimed city range of around 62 miles (at 30 mph), and a removable 3.3 kWh lithium-ion battery pack.

Since then, Nikki has been using it as her errand-runner, taken it on some longer-distance trips, and even uses it for the weekly shop. And now, 1-month later, she's managed to hit 500 miles in the saddle. Here's what she's learned, how the bike is faring, what she likes (and doesn't) - and her hope for the next 500 miles!

⏱️ Chapter Breakdown:

00:00 Intro

Links: (Non-Affiliated)

HMP Bikes - https://www.hmpbikes.com

HMP Lightning Series (Including MKII) - https://www.hmpbikes.com/collections/lightning-series

HMP Flash - https://www.hmpbikes.com/collections/flash-series-1

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It's been a while since we last talked about EV battery health, and in that time a fair bit has changed. Some of the advice we all used to give has been overtaken by real-world fleet data — and with LFP packs turning up in more and more cars, what was good practice for an NCM battery doesn't always hold true any more.

So today we're going deep: how to find out what chemistry your car actually has, why your EV behaves nothing like your phone, what the data really says about fast charging and spirited driving, and the handful of habits that will keep your EV's battery healthy for as long as possible.

0:00 Introduction

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Back in 2002, Volkswagen unveiled a car that was nothing like anything it had made before. Called the 1-litre car, it promised an ultra-efficient 1 litre per 100 km of fuel consumption, was built with ultra-lightweight materials, and placed the passenger behind the driver.

It morphed into the 2009 L1 - which in turn gave rise to the limited-production XL1 plug-in diesel hybrid.

This week, out of the blue, Volkswagen unveiled the spiritual successor to all of those vehicles: the Volkswagen Mission Efficiency. A concept car built around the same principles, but replacing the plug-in hybrid drivetrain with an all-electric drivetrain out of a production Volkswagen ID. Polo, it not only adds more seating than any of its predecessors could offer - but also manages an astonishing energy efficiency that pushes its range to more than 450 miles per charge of its 55 kilowatt-hour battery pack.

Having experienced the XL1 first hand more than a decade ago, Nikki explains why the original XL1 was such a unique vehicle - and puts forward the case as to why Volkswagen should take the Mission Efficiency out of concept car state, and make it a production vehicle.

⏱️ Chapter Breakdown:

00:00 - Introduction

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Host, Script, Editor: Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield

It's been nearly two weeks since we unveiled project Mellon, Nikki's Lord Of The Rings-inspired custom control board for the WOLFBOX powered tonneau cover.

Built around an ESP32-C6, and a custom board built alongside PCBWay, it connects Nikki's tonneau cover's BLE connection with the built-in HomeLink-compatible visor in her F-150 Lightning. But to date, all her testing has been on the bench.

There's still a lot to do: including a custom harness, and a CAN bus integration. But will her first tests in the truck actually work?

⏱️ Chapter Breakdown:

00:00 — Introduction

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One of the advantages of modern EVs is remote control over charging — checking state of charge, or starting and stopping a session, from wherever you are. And in some markets, with the right hardware, you can even earn money by letting your local utility shape your charging sessions in line with grid demand.

Smart charging products have been around for years now. But would you actually hand over the keys? Do you trust your utility to have your car ready when you need it — or do you manage charging yourself? And if you're somewhere with a V2G program, do you trust them to pull power out of your pack and put it back?

Stay safe, stay engaged. Please watch our livestream from January.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxKt_APYQug

About The Transport Evolved Sunday Musings:

Presenter: Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield.

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Yesterday, the United Nations Environment Programme confirmed what many climate activists, renewable energy wonks and EV owners feared it would: that we, collectively, have failed to act in a meaningful enough way to prevent global temperature rises due to anthropogenic climate change from going above 1.5ºC when compared to pre-industrial levels.

In a stark, frankly depressing report, it warns we will exceed a 1.5ºC rise in global temperature in the near future, and that short- to mid-term climate consequences are likely to cause irreversible losses and permanently changed conditions.

Today, (or rather, in a video recorded yesterday), Nikki discusses her reaction to the report, the gut reaction to want to give up — and how it's important that we do the exact opposite, doubling down on our efforts to make a cleaner, greener, safer, smarter and more equitable world in which we all have a place.

Read the report for yourself at : https://www.unep.org/resources/limiting-overshoot-navigating-exceedance

⏱️ Chapter Breakdown:

00:00 – Introduction

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After spending nearly a decade ramping up toward an all-electric future, automakers around the world - or at least in some markets - are rolling back or even canceling their EV plans, choosing instead to focus on hybrid, plug-in hybrid, and extended-range electric vehicle (EREV) technology.

But while automakers are eager to promote it as the next logical step after claiming pure EVs were a flop, we have data to back up our position: EREVs are not the solution we're looking for, and will do little to solve the real issue: affordable, accessible charging for all.

⏱️ Chapter Breakdown:

00:00 - Introduction

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🎙️ Credits:

Host, Script, Editor: Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield