Emergency Disconnect - Rickard Electric Beck Speedster Owner's Manual

EMERGENCY DISCONNECT

The electric vehicle is engineered to be quite safe in all instances. But it does
consist of electronic control devices and if they fail, predicting the failure mode
is difficult. There can be no instance where the car runs away with you out of
control.
In the unlikely event you encounter a situation
where the car is accelerating uncommanded in
Toyota Prius fashion, there are several options to
recover:
1. Remove your foot from the throttle and
ensure no carpeting or mats are interfering
with throttle operation.
2. Turn off the ignition key. Unlike a gasoline
engine, there is no damage to the engine
here and there is no analog to the
"dieseling" concept in an ICE vehicle where
it runs out of control even without ignition
voltage. You are effectively removing all
"fuel" from the motor – a heavy duty
contactor relay will open, removing pack
voltage from the controller.
3. In the incredible event that steps one and
two both fail for whatever reason to disable the pack, a heavy duty
manual emergency disconnect switch is provided on the drivers side door
post near your left elbow, just beneath the engine bay hatch release.
Turn this switch a full 180 degrees to completely disable the battery
pack. ONLY use this switch in an emergency or when storing the car for
long periods of time as it completely disconnects the battery pack and
resets all your instrumentation.
4. In the further unlikely event none of those steps work, you can always
put in the clutch. The motor will complain loudly at high rpm but is
electronically limited to 6300 rpm and probably won't even be damaged.
In this way, you can disconnect the motor from the drive wheels and
slow the car.
Rickard Electric Special Edition – Owner's Manual
Page 19 of 30