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If you sacrifice the bed, you can get a 92 mile range commuter vehicle out of an old S10.

http://www.austinev.org/evinfo/build/eva-selectingavehicle.html
http://www.evalbum.com/037

That may be much more than what you need, but the less you draw down your batteries, the longer your batteries will last. If you never let your batteries drain below 95%, they will last much, much longer than if you're draining them halfway down every day. In the long run, this may save you a lot of money, as battery replacement is the majority of the cost per mile for running an electric vehicle.

Basically, what redcane said.

You achieve similar road driving performance with a electric motor rated with 1/3 the HP of a gasoline engine.

Electric motors are rated under load at maximum sustained power. Gasoline ones are measured unloaded peak power. Thus, a '25 hp' electric motor can operate as a 100hp one for a short period of time. This time is limited by heat generation. A good controller will have a heat probe much like the sensors for CPUs today, and limit power before the heat is enough to cause damage. This can be extended out with active cooling, if necessary. The Tesla electric car motor has a fan, for example.

The vast majority of vehicles don't operate at anything near their peak level except for brief periods of time. For example, I still have ~ two thirds of my throttle to go in my four banger at 75 mph. So at max speed I'm operating at ~33%. Multiply by three, I'd be operating an electric motor ~100%, it's most efficient loading. I wouldn't be able to do 80 mph for long periods, but I'd still be able to pass other traffic.

If I live in hill or hot country, I might want to use a 1/2 figure instead. As is, I've been forced to downshift on some steep hills to maintain speed. In an electric vehicle - as long as the hill's short, I'll be fine. If it's a long climb, I might have to slow down.

But anyways, if you want references:
http://www.electroauto.com/catalog/dcmotors.shtml -
http://www.austinev.org/evalbum/motor.html

Sorry, can't find the 1/3 reference at the moment.

(Interesting factoid, since you drive a VW air-cooled: one of the most efficient EV conversion platforms is the Karmann Ghia. It has a very light aerodynamic body, and the drum brakes have less drag than discs. See here for one that gets 60 miles on a charge without turning the car into a "lead sled", and has very good acceleration using cheap lead-acid batteries.

You can. And you can get it for less than $13K. You just have to get a used one.

Citicar

I've helped build two electric conversion cars as an undergrad project, and I can attest that it is a _HUGE_ undertaking, even with a full garage at your disposal. Lots of welding and bolt-turning required. The result is hugely rewarding though. One of our conversions can do about 15 miles a day completely on the mounted solar panels: http://www.austinev.org/evalbum/838 The other one is just a complete gas (no pun intended) to drive: http://www.austinev.org/evalbum/837

I've helped build two electric conversion cars as an undergrad project, and I can attest that it is a _HUGE_ undertaking, even with a full garage at your disposal. Lots of welding and bolt-turning required. The result is hugely rewarding though. One of our conversions can do about 15 miles a day completely on the mounted solar panels: http://www.austinev.org/evalbum/838 The other one is just a complete gas (no pun intended) to drive: http://www.austinev.org/evalbum/837

Yeah. First off, an older car isn't what you want - too heavy. And as bbsguru said, to do this on the cheap? Not likely. this guy converted a junked Hyundai Elantra, doing all of his own welding/fabrication and buying everything piecemeal from EBay (no kits here), and still spent $6000 to get a 25 mile range and 'pretty darned slow' acceleration. Of course, its a work in progress, but that should give you some idea of the bare minimum. For that money, you can buy a nice well-maintained diesel VW and get 45-50mpg just fine.

DIY is frequently less expensive than paying someone else to do it. You don't have to pay for the labor in many cases and can use less expensive alternatives if you're willing to be your own maintainer.

Oh, absolutely. But in this case, paying someone else to do it gets you access to all sorts of R&D write-offs and tax incentives. Check out sites like this 914 where the owner has spent over $10k, plus the cost of car, and hasn't even really started yet.

Doing an expensive endeavor yourself is often cheaper than having someone else do it for you, even if you end up paying more for materials. But getting a $20k product for $15k doesn't make it cheap. It makes it less expensive. The GPP was making the point that if you're having a hard time coming up with a clunker car then you're probably not going to be able to afford an electric conversion. This is almost certainly true, and your attack didn't address it at all.

Check out http://www.austinev.org/evalbum/ for over 800 examples of electric cars, most of which are conversions or kit built.

Oh? Upon what is that conclusion based? You might want to examine your underlying assumptions. "Oil" is just an arrangement of carbon and hydrogen atoms. If there was sufficient incentive, someone could invent multiple ways of turning sunlight, water, and carbon dioxide into a substance that was as identical to petroleum as you could wish. Nobody's going to do that, of course, because the there are already ways to convert the output of plants into replacements for the three main uses for petroleum (as a fuel, as a chemical feedstock, and as lubricant) so there's no point in attempting to duplicate petroleum.

Now, the reason that plant products haven't replaced petroleum for those three main uses is primarily economic: Petroleum is still cheaper than the plants required to turn the plants into biodiesel, lubricating oil, and plastics. Further, the current high prices are viewed by a lot of people as being temporary which limits the willingness to invest in improving the technology to the point where it would even be cost-effective with oil at the prices being paid for it two years ago.

The thing that sticks in my craw is the fact that I would be a prime target for an electric vehicle, but they cost too damn much. I pay $400 per month for the minivan (because I need the seats for all the people in my family) I just bought (because some idiot in a pickup truck didn't know you shouldn't drive 70 mph in a parking lot) and it burns $150 per month in gasoline. Even if I were to entirely eliminate the cost of fuel, I could only justify paying $550 per month for an electric vehicle. That's not enough to buy an $80,000 car, not unless the note is for substantially longer than six years. (My current car note is a sixty-month note.)

Anyway, that leaves me with the option of buying a gasoline-powered car and converting it. That actually is cost-effective (and here is a link to some information about building your own electric car) and I've been interested in that option since I read the article about it in Make but that requires a commitment to the effort (in time, energy, and a reasonably stocked workshop) that I'm not currently willing to make.

When I lived in Texas I came across a group of electric vehicle enthusiasts. Check out the website for Austin Area Electric Auto Association. They give some pointers on conversions, give some suppliers of parts, and show off what people in the area have done.

this topic had been covered on slashdot previously. Its a major wonder how news sites ever stay in buisness when the stories are old.

Also, anyone who has seriously looked into electric vehicles (EV's) will note that in spite of the success of well built electric vehicles (GM EV1 and the electric Ford Ranger), the automakers are resistant to the idea of selling electric vehicles. When the contracts for the EV1 were complete, GM scrapped the vehicles. Many EV modles have suffered this fate. A few more recent success stories like the Ford Ranger EV have popped up. After intense ralleying by vehicle owners, Ford gave in and sold off their small fleet of Ranger EV's.

sorry, i'm ranting again. Yes, an electric car isn't for everyone. However, take a look at some electric vehicle conversions and what owners have to say before making up your mind.

Electric cars, or hybrid cars, have the problem that they can't obtain high torque instantly.

You can go faster if you want.

9 second 1/4 mile Electric Drag Bike

The technology is here, the only problem is cost.

it won't be long before we see all-electric cars with 300+ mile ranges and sub-5-second 0-60 performance.

I remember reading this story in Wired some years ago about electric vehicle drag racing. The article talks about the National Electric Drag Racing Association (NEDRA), among other things.

Some of these cars are what you think of when you think of drag racing; some of them aren't, like this street legal 1972 Datsun 1200 "White Zombie" mentioned in the Wired story. Some people build electric motorcycles too; check out the KillaCycle .

• 1 Gallon of Gas contains 132x10^6 joules of energy, equivalent to 125,000 BTU, 36.650 kwh(kilo-watt-hours), 31,000 food calories.
  
• A 70mpg Hybrid sips 0.52 kwh/mile, the average 20mpg car uses 1.76 kwh/mile and The Hummer H2 wastes 3.7 kwh/mile or more.
  
• Electric Vehicles use from 0.2 to 0.6 kwh/mile, that's up to 18 times more efficient. EV Album
  
• 7.5 Billion miles at 0.4 kwh/mile is just 3,000 Giga-Watt-Hours, as compared to 13,000 GWH. 23% as much power.
  
• America currently produces 27.3 Giga-Watts-Hours per day with wind power alone.AWEA
  

Tell that to the people at http://www.austinev.org/index.html

1) Lead batteries are the most recycled product on the face of the earth. No kidding. The only part not always recycled is the plastic shell. The lead and electrolytes are all reused.

2) There are plenty of them (and tons that drive more like the gas econoboxes that are more common than the gas sports cars). You can see some here, here, here, here, and here. Or peruse the entire album of EVs great and small, ugly and beautiful, slow and fast at the EV Photo Album.

Also see The National Electric Drag Racing Association and the electric supercar, the T-Zero

3) I'm sorry when did you get a muscle car with a 400 mile range? Generally (even with an oversized gas tank) these cars come in at the 200-300 mile range per fill-up at best. Are EV's there yet? Not quite. 150 miles per charge is about the upper limit right now. But guess what? 95% or more of most Americans driving is less than 50 miles per day.

4) Since the car is plugged into the wall every night and charges while you sleep you're not having to blow 5-10 minutes pumping gas and that's excluding any time and effort it takes you to detour to the gas station.

However, a significantly shorter recharge is easily done with higher Amperage circuits in your home (typical EV car can recharge in only a few hours anyway) and/or a battery based dump station that can recharge your pack in 10 minutes or less. The EV dragsters use such (admittedly somewhat frightening) dump packs on a regular basis.

5) Oh and most of these supposedly wimpy electric car conversions can eat your American muscle car for lunch. It's nice being able to have your full torque available through your entire power curve.

Heck some electric cars can even eat exotic sports cars for lunch.

1) Lead batteries are the most recycled product on the face of the earth. No kidding. The only part not always recycled is the plastic shell. The lead and electrolytes are all reused.

2) There are plenty of them (and tons that drive more like the gas econoboxes that are more common than the gas sports cars). You can see some here, here, here, here, and here. Or peruse the entire album of EVs great and small, ugly and beautiful, slow and fast at the EV Photo Album.

Also see The National Electric Drag Racing Association and the electric supercar, the T-Zero

3) I'm sorry when did you get a muscle car with a 400 mile range? Generally (even with an oversized gas tank) these cars come in at the 200-300 mile range per fill-up at best. Are EV's there yet? Not quite. 150 miles per charge is about the upper limit right now. But guess what? 95% or more of most Americans driving is less than 50 miles per day.

4) Since the car is plugged into the wall every night and charges while you sleep you're not having to blow 5-10 minutes pumping gas and that's excluding any time and effort it takes you to detour to the gas station.

However, a significantly shorter recharge is easily done with higher Amperage circuits in your home (typical EV car can recharge in only a few hours anyway) and/or a battery based dump station that can recharge your pack in 10 minutes or less. The EV dragsters use such (admittedly somewhat frightening) dump packs on a regular basis.

5) Oh and most of these supposedly wimpy electric car conversions can eat your American muscle car for lunch. It's nice being able to have your full torque available through your entire power curve.

Heck some electric cars can even eat exotic sports cars for lunch.

1) Lead batteries are the most recycled product on the face of the earth. No kidding. The only part not always recycled is the plastic shell. The lead and electrolytes are all reused.

2) There are plenty of them (and tons that drive more like the gas econoboxes that are more common than the gas sports cars). You can see some here, here, here, here, and here. Or peruse the entire album of EVs great and small, ugly and beautiful, slow and fast at the EV Photo Album.

Also see The National Electric Drag Racing Association and the electric supercar, the T-Zero

3) I'm sorry when did you get a muscle car with a 400 mile range? Generally (even with an oversized gas tank) these cars come in at the 200-300 mile range per fill-up at best. Are EV's there yet? Not quite. 150 miles per charge is about the upper limit right now. But guess what? 95% or more of most Americans driving is less than 50 miles per day.

4) Since the car is plugged into the wall every night and charges while you sleep you're not having to blow 5-10 minutes pumping gas and that's excluding any time and effort it takes you to detour to the gas station.

However, a significantly shorter recharge is easily done with higher Amperage circuits in your home (typical EV car can recharge in only a few hours anyway) and/or a battery based dump station that can recharge your pack in 10 minutes or less. The EV dragsters use such (admittedly somewhat frightening) dump packs on a regular basis.

5) Oh and most of these supposedly wimpy electric car conversions can eat your American muscle car for lunch. It's nice being able to have your full torque available through your entire power curve.

Heck some electric cars can even eat exotic sports cars for lunch.

1) Lead batteries are the most recycled product on the face of the earth. No kidding. The only part not always recycled is the plastic shell. The lead and electrolytes are all reused.

2) There are plenty of them (and tons that drive more like the gas econoboxes that are more common than the gas sports cars). You can see some here, here, here, here, and here. Or peruse the entire album of EVs great and small, ugly and beautiful, slow and fast at the EV Photo Album.

Also see The National Electric Drag Racing Association and the electric supercar, the T-Zero

3) I'm sorry when did you get a muscle car with a 400 mile range? Generally (even with an oversized gas tank) these cars come in at the 200-300 mile range per fill-up at best. Are EV's there yet? Not quite. 150 miles per charge is about the upper limit right now. But guess what? 95% or more of most Americans driving is less than 50 miles per day.

4) Since the car is plugged into the wall every night and charges while you sleep you're not having to blow 5-10 minutes pumping gas and that's excluding any time and effort it takes you to detour to the gas station.

However, a significantly shorter recharge is easily done with higher Amperage circuits in your home (typical EV car can recharge in only a few hours anyway) and/or a battery based dump station that can recharge your pack in 10 minutes or less. The EV dragsters use such (admittedly somewhat frightening) dump packs on a regular basis.

5) Oh and most of these supposedly wimpy electric car conversions can eat your American muscle car for lunch. It's nice being able to have your full torque available through your entire power curve.

Heck some electric cars can even eat exotic sports cars for lunch.

1) Lead batteries are the most recycled product on the face of the earth. No kidding. The only part not always recycled is the plastic shell. The lead and electrolytes are all reused.

2) There are plenty of them (and tons that drive more like the gas econoboxes that are more common than the gas sports cars). You can see some here, here, here, here, and here. Or peruse the entire album of EVs great and small, ugly and beautiful, slow and fast at the EV Photo Album.

Also see The National Electric Drag Racing Association and the electric supercar, the T-Zero

3) I'm sorry when did you get a muscle car with a 400 mile range? Generally (even with an oversized gas tank) these cars come in at the 200-300 mile range per fill-up at best. Are EV's there yet? Not quite. 150 miles per charge is about the upper limit right now. But guess what? 95% or more of most Americans driving is less than 50 miles per day.

4) Since the car is plugged into the wall every night and charges while you sleep you're not having to blow 5-10 minutes pumping gas and that's excluding any time and effort it takes you to detour to the gas station.

However, a significantly shorter recharge is easily done with higher Amperage circuits in your home (typical EV car can recharge in only a few hours anyway) and/or a battery based dump station that can recharge your pack in 10 minutes or less. The EV dragsters use such (admittedly somewhat frightening) dump packs on a regular basis.

5) Oh and most of these supposedly wimpy electric car conversions can eat your American muscle car for lunch. It's nice being able to have your full torque available through your entire power curve.

Heck some electric cars can even eat exotic sports cars for lunch.

1) Lead batteries are the most recycled product on the face of the earth. No kidding. The only part not always recycled is the plastic shell. The lead and electrolytes are all reused.

2) There are plenty of them (and tons that drive more like the gas econoboxes that are more common than the gas sports cars). You can see some here, here, here, here, and here. Or peruse the entire album of EVs great and small, ugly and beautiful, slow and fast at the EV Photo Album.

Also see The National Electric Drag Racing Association and the electric supercar, the T-Zero

3) I'm sorry when did you get a muscle car with a 400 mile range? Generally (even with an oversized gas tank) these cars come in at the 200-300 mile range per fill-up at best. Are EV's there yet? Not quite. 150 miles per charge is about the upper limit right now. But guess what? 95% or more of most Americans driving is less than 50 miles per day.

4) Since the car is plugged into the wall every night and charges while you sleep you're not having to blow 5-10 minutes pumping gas and that's excluding any time and effort it takes you to detour to the gas station.

However, a significantly shorter recharge is easily done with higher Amperage circuits in your home (typical EV car can recharge in only a few hours anyway) and/or a battery based dump station that can recharge your pack in 10 minutes or less. The EV dragsters use such (admittedly somewhat frightening) dump packs on a regular basis.

5) Oh and most of these supposedly wimpy electric car conversions can eat your American muscle car for lunch. It's nice being able to have your full torque available through your entire power curve.

Heck some electric cars can even eat exotic sports cars for lunch.

What about any electtical outlet for the Segway? The thing goes 10-12 miles on $0.10 USD. That bicycle goes 10-12 miles on $0.25 USD.

Have you seen the pollution in growing nations that have cities full of 2 cycle engines on motor scooters? Damn man talk about stinky horrible asthma causing pollution.

How about this one?

http://www.austinev.org/evalbum/427.html

This bike is probably a little bit better than some stinky ICE bike. It also has the same range. Go figure.

I wasn't aware of this, so thanks for the parent post for pointing it out, but here is the car I think the parent is refering to.

Electric cars are a little weak in the horse power department, but you can't beat electric when it comes to low end torque, that's why trains are electric or diesel electric. An electric motor will generate it's peak torque at zero rpms (really important for trains), and you can't get your torque band peak much lower than zero...

Last year San Francisco Muni were testing some diesel buses to replace there older electric ones. I took one up haight street one day and the thing was really struggling to pull away from bus stops (on a steep hill) when it was full (no standing room). In constrast I've never noticed any real difference between the electric buses pulling away on flat vs a hill (with or without a full load).

Anyway, if you want an electric car you are best building your own, this way you get exactly what you want. The above link has an electric dragster section as well.... not sure about the reasoning behind it but whatever.

While the waiting list is pretty long and the price is high, you can get an electric car with a 100+ mile range that does the quarter mile faster than a late 90's Vette. Go see the T-Zero at A/C Propulsion's site.

Another way to go is to find an electric car conversion shop or individual. Purchase a cheap ICE vehicle, spend another $6-$10K converting it and you have a vehicle that will last as long as the body holds up that looks like everyone elses car, but needs far less maintenence and no gasoline.

Or you could just do the whole thing yourself. If done right your range will be between 40 and 60 miles per charge.

Remember Optima Yellow Top deep cycle batteries are your friends.

While the waiting list is pretty long and the price is high, you can get an electric car with a 100+ mile range that does the quarter mile faster than a late 90's Vette. Go see the T-Zero at A/C Propulsion's site.

Another way to go is to find an electric car conversion shop or individual. Purchase a cheap ICE vehicle, spend another $6-$10K converting it and you have a vehicle that will last as long as the body holds up that looks like everyone elses car, but needs far less maintenence and no gasoline.

Or you could just do the whole thing yourself. If done right your range will be between 40 and 60 miles per charge.

Remember Optima Yellow Top deep cycle batteries are your friends.

Well, the auto companies (well, really the auto industry) stand to have a more damaged profit margin than the oil companies do. An ICE (internal combuston Engine) based car cost 28cent per mile to run (about 6cent of that goes to gas, the rest is spend on brakes, oil changes and replacement parts and repairs), and electric car cost about 6 cents per mile run, around half of this is spend on charging the batteries, the rest is spent on new motor brushs (At 80k miles) and replacing all the batteries after 4 or 5 years (also brakes, which may wear less if you have regenerative braking, or may wear more because the car has to be heavier due the wieght of batteries.

I think that everybody in a household should have an electric car for driving around town...

Here are 100s of ICE cars converted to electric

I'd like to see a used car dealership that buys ICE cars with blown motors and converts them to electric, every town should have one....

It's pretty amazing what you can do with the solar vehicles considering the truly poor energy density available even in a 1 meter x 3 meter area. The amount of energy it takes to move those vehicles is extremely small. For the high power stuff you need to go to Nedra.com or for the day to day usable electric cars, trikes, motorcycles, and bicycles check out EV Album. Many of these were hand built.