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DIY Hybrid Car Kit
Hybride And The Groom writes "Building hybrids uses machinery that pollutes the environment. The solution? Ship the parts of a hybrid individually and get your customers to put the car together themselves. That's exactly what Robert Q Riley Enterprises is doing, according to a story on CNet today, with its XR-3 hybrid. It'll cost you $25,000 for the bits, plus zero dollars in manufacture, I hope. Better yet, cough up $200 for the blueprints and schematics and even build the parts yourself. It's no secret that many hybrid drivers are smug enough as it is. Allow them to brag about having built the damn cars themselves and we might be entering obscenely smug territory."
At least that one looks cool but, really, who has the time to do this? If they have the time then do they have the interest or the money?
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
there are plenty of people doing nice electric S10's for under $10k including the donor car. The 40 miles round trip per charge is almost twice what I need.
I'll have the fries, please....
Only if your time is worth zero dollars.
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Like so many of these things, it's a motorcycle - not a car. It only has 3 wheels so that they don't have to meet safety standards.
Who knew you could lighten up a car if you stripped out all of the safety equipment?
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Building hybrids uses machinery that pollutes the environment. The solution? Don't build anything!
That said, though, I looked up what would be required to build an all-electric vehicle and it was about $10k not including a vehicle to convert. Not a cheap hobby, unfortunately :/
=Smidge=
By providing prints and the ability to build parts/put the damned thing together to begin with it's not to give smug yuppies something to be conceded about. It's to give hotrodders the ability to make supped up hybrid! Seriously, I would love to get most of one of these kits, put two kits into a car if possible for the extra kick, throw in a powerful V6 instead of a four (or even three) banger, then put it all in the body of a Dodge Charger.
The electric part could actually take it off the line better than a gas engine, the gas engine would add the power, something like that should kick ass on the quarter mile then do a relatively slow victory lap without using any gas.
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Why not design the car yourself - using bits and pieces found at your local junkyard? Better yet - smelt the metal in your garage and take up blacksmithing to make all the bits. Sort of like building your own computer from discrete transistors.
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Uh, building a hybrid at home probably makes more pollution than making it in a factory.
The reason they sell it as a kit is to avoid all the federal vehicle rules. By passing on assembly to the end-user, it becomes THEIR problem to get the car licensed.
Also I don't quite get the "zero dollars to manufacture". Lots of the steps involve lots of time, welding, painting, trips to the hardware store. That all costs many $$$.
...getting it insured. Just ask anyone who's ever built one of those DIY motorcycle kits or a custom shop (like OCC).
- Despite popular opinion, I am not perfect.
"The electric part could actually take it off the line better than a gas engine,"
THIS.
The best part about that is you wouldn't need a bank of batteries to do the job. A large capacitor bank (or super-capacitors once they're available) would work great. Just enough juice to break the inertia of the car and lug it off the line is all you really need.
most hybrids (GM) at least basically have a motor wedged between the engine and transmission. The engine and drive line are exactly the same as the non hybrid versions.
This being said I recently purchased a trusty 92 Corolla which after a little tweaking and cleaning up gives me over 40 mpg. how hard would it be to mfg a adapter kit between the transmission and engine similar to what GM does.
a big part of the problem is we keep building unnecessary crap. I know in our economy this is not beneficial but why not take cars we already have and update them.
So has this thing been crash tested? Do you have to get the car certified after you build it, so that you can drive it on the road? Are you any more liable if anything happens to a passenger, motorist, or pedestrian, in such a car?
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So, what happens when I build this thing, and try to get it registered at my local DMV?
DMV Drone: Make?
Me: Me
DMV Drone: No, who is the manufacturer?
Me: Me
DMV Drone: (sigh). Model?
Me: Mostly done in Solidworks.
DMV Drone: NEXT!
Can someone point us to hard data comparing overall carbon footprint, actual mileage, monetary cost to the consumer, environmental impact, etc. comparing hybrids and conventional cars? I am wondering specifically if the Prius beats a Corolla over a five-year span as a commute car. I suspect it does not, but do not have the facts.
...are we scared yet?
From the web site:
So the $25,000 is a guess at what you might be able to buy parts to build it for. It isn't an offer to sell a kit.
The preferred solution is to not have a problem.
All I want is a light, very efficient hybrid/electric vehicle, that doesn't look ridiculous. Even if its stripped down for weight, add a plastic body that has the same rough shape as a "real" car. I hope every innovation doesn't have to look like something brought here by Mork from Ork.
I don't see how this eliminates the carbon footprint of building the car. It only moves it. Unless all of your tools are alternative energy powered, and the vehicles used to deliver the parts to you are likewise alternative energy powered, nothing has been accomplished here except moving where the carbon has been emitted. I fail to see how this helps the planet.
I want a new quote. One that won't spill. One that don't cost too much. Or come in a pill.
I also looked for a price on this engine. The first I saw was about $2800 for a remanufactured unit, with a $700 core charge. It's used in bobcats and similar. If you're building this "car," you won't have a core, so it's going to cost you $3500.
The preferred solution is to not have a problem.
I submit that this project, though good in itself, would be of no use and therefore a waste of time in Ontario, Canada because the government over there will not license a similar project from a local manufacturer, Zenn http://www.zenncars.com/.
You wonder who these folks in government are working for. I suspect that they are protecting big oil.
Their argument is that these cars have not been proven to be safe on [Canadian] roads, though these same cars are available in the USA where they have not caused any trouble.
Has anyone used these cars? How do they perform?
Crimeny, having had a VW Beetle I would estimate that you would have to factor in the cost of a barn to keep enough spare exhausts, wings, sills, filler, primer, welding rods etc to keep 10 of the damn things operative (at least in the UK).
They whose government reduces their essential liberties for temporary security, receive neither liberty nor security.
I think this guy is pure genius.
Instead of creating his own auto factory and taking years of research, development, marketing, and infrastructure, he just sells out the blueprints so you can build it yourself.
He doesn't have to worry about competing with other auto manufacturers, pressure from Oil companies or ambulance chasers suing him because of some manufacturing flaw.
How long until somebody else takes his design and builds something much better? I would love to see the mythbusters guys building one of these.
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No, the real reason for selling kits is to avoid safety and pollution controls. A manufacturer has to deal with those, but a kit maker doesn't, at least to some degree. I don't know all the ins and outs of it. Maybe kit makers avoid those problems only if the kit modifies an existing car. But I bet this guy avoids them too since he is not selling a car. Maybe the catch is that the builder (the kit buyer) will have to deal with safety and pollution controls, and probably not be able to register it.
Infuriate left and right
It depends upon the regulations of the state or province. In British Columbia, Canada, a three-wheeled vehicle with an enclosed passenger compartment is considered an automobile. Some states call vehicles with 2 front wheels and 1 rear wheel cars, while others call the motorcycles. Some places it's a matter of engine displacement, body styles, etc.
I read Slashdot for the headlines, because the headlines, unlike the articles, are usually original and never duplicated
Great idea, too bad it's fugly, more expensive than Honda's new hybrid at $25k, and basically just a motorcycle.
Call me when they make a Prius kit, or a drop in electric engine replacement for the Civic. ;)
-- sudo.ca
rqriley has been selling "plans" for decades. they have been trying to get people to build the tri-magnum for 30 years without success...
http://www.rqriley.com/tri-mag.html
anyone with an ounce of mechnaical skill can do that without the "plans" and a regular car in less time with less cost.
Hell go get a smashed prius, a light car you want to make a hybrid and simply put the drivetrain in the car. All done, really easy and not rocket science.
Hell it's not hard to replace the ECM for the prius with something that is more hackable if you really wanted to.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Well, if you enjoy tinkering with stuff and would otherwise have the time free anyhow, then it might even be that the time is of a negative cost.
That is to say, if you spend $25k for the unit, but spend 200 hours being rather entertained by putting it together, then you've just spend $25k on the parts and saved $x on whatever else you might have spend that money on (movies, video games, trips, etc).
I do a lot of the additions/repairs around the house. If might cost *more* than a plumber/carpenter/etc if you count what my day job's hourly rate is, but for me the cost of supplies is paying for both the renos and the entertainment of doing them.
One man's burden is another man's leisure, I'd rather be working on neat projects around the house than baking under a hot sun swinging a stick at a dimpled white ball.
My wife has a Prius, and she gets about 225 MPG because most of the time she makes me drive her around in my car.
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You don't keep all 10 operative. You keep 2 operative and put your 8 organ donors in the barn. 4-to-1 seems like about the right ratio to keep an old Beetle together.
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
AMEN. I had a 79 diesel Volkswagen Jetta (52 whole HP!) It got 45-48 mpg all the time, with my foot to the floor most of the time, but it couldn't maintain 50 mph when driving on the hilly Interstates in West Virginia and Tennessee. Just move to the far right and hope not to get run over.
So new hybrids must have enough battery storage capacity to get over those hills, more than just to get going after a stop light.
Against stupidity, the Gods themselves contend in vain. --Friederich Schiller
> At least that way repair shops won't have to be all confused about fixing the new technology [...]
Yeah, they can be all confused trying to figure out what the user has done to the thing.
Let's take an example we can relate to. A company advertises that they can send you the parts to a PC and directions on putting it together. Many of the unwashed public take advantage of this. Local nerdshops are inundated with half-assed assembly jobs, and the natives get really unfriendly when they're told that the best thing to do is junk it as a bad investment and buy an assembled car, er, PC off the lot, er shelf.
One could argue that this deal is for people who know what they're doing. I submit that this is not exactly true -- it's for people with $25,000 who *think* they know what they're doing.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
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.
The way I understand it a motorcycle really has one and only one safety feature, maneuverability. You don't ever want to get hit and if you're careful you can often avoid getting hit when a car wouldn't be able to. A car on the other hand has size, crumple zones, mass, multiple airbags, decently strong building materials and so on which let it it take a hit without killing the occupants. This thing seems to fail under both criteria.
Exactly. You need to have a kilowatt hour or two of reserve charge to "average out" the hills. Optimally, your motor should be sized to haul you up an interstate at 5-6% grade (6% = legal max) at what you consider a reasonable speed, while your engine should be sized to manage a 1-2% grade (you generally won't surpass that as a running average of slopes on an interstate). Smaller mountain roads may be steeper and have higher average grades, but you won't be climbing them at nearly as high of a speed, either.
Do you work at Taco Bell? The guy at the drive-through said that to me last night.
Actually there's a legal Motor Vehicle Saftey Standard (MVSS) requirement from Transport Canada stating that they must meet crash requirements before they may be certified as road legal. Having pursued interest in Factory Five kit cars myself, they had to prove crash-worthiness (destroy 3 of them) before they could sell kits in Canada. These include things like airbags, disc brakes, braking distance, bumper size and momentum absorbed into the bumper....you get the picture. http://www.tc.gc.ca/roadsafety/menu.htm
Several things wrong with this.
1) The amount of energy needed to produce a modern battery generally only measures a few charge cycles worth. Virtually every peer-reviewed study of cars shows exactly what you'd expect: that far more energy is consumed during their lifetimes than during their construction. Your average car will burn a couple times it's own weight in fuel over its lifespan, and none of that is "recycled" like most of the car's body.
2) Yes, EVs cost more to buy than diesel cars currently. They also consume electricity which averages $0.10/kWh in the US instead of diesel which averages, what, $4.30/gal? Your average 40mpg-diesel sedan would take about 250Wh/mi electric, which equates to 9.3 cents per mile diesel and 2.5 cents per mile electric. Assuming reasonable battery longevity (i.e., either NiMH, zebra, or automotive li-ions, not lead-acid or traditional li-ions), the total cost of ownership for EVs is very favorable to them over their lifespans. This allows all sorts of methods to work around sticker shock for those who are concerned, such as longer loans, leases, surcharges on electricity fillups or battery swaps, battery rental, or so forth -- all of which give you a normal up-front cost and monthly operations costs that are still lower than what the average driver would spend on gas or diesel. And this is just with current battery costs; they're falling fast. Ener1 (parent company of battery maker EnerDel), for example, expects their cell prices to be cut in half over the next few years. Most automotive li-ion aren't even close to being limited by raw material costs.
3) Most diesel numbers are quite distorted to boot. Yes, diesel engines are more efficient than gasoline engines. No, they're not *that* much more efficient. Most people will look at some european diesel and lament that they're getting 50mpg or so and we can't get it here.
A) Diesel is simply a more dense fuel -- about 15% denser. Gasoline mpg != diesel mpg. Just ethanol mpgs are going to be inherently lower than gasoline due to its lower density, diesel is inherently going to get an artificial 15% boost that isn't representative of, say, it's CO2 footprint or how much oil it represents.
B) The european drive cycle is more lax than the revised EPA drivecycle, and is more similar to the old EPA drivecycle. Remember how much nicer the official numbers used to look in the US? Remember how they worked out in the real world? Same issue.
C) Sometimes the "gallons" you see on mpg numbers for european cars are imperial gallons, not US gallons. Imperial gallons are larger.
In general, a diesel car will emit around 80% as much CO2 per mile and consume about 80% as much oil chemical energy. It's a difference, and even a relevant one, but not as big of a difference as it at first appears.
Do you work at Taco Bell? The guy at the drive-through said that to me last night.
Foy my brother. He was a custom fabricator, and he said the only problem was with bikes that actually had the frame fabbed. Most custom shops (OCC for example) use pre-fabbed frames, and those are no problem to insure.
To quote LongNoi "QZTR was right and won't leave me alone because I called him a moron when I was wrong" FYS
Hmm, could you put this in terms of a car analogy?
This is Slashdot. Please stick to car analogies so we can understand.
Oh wait...
You built it yourself. Why would you be taking it to a repair shop?
And what is with the can't do attitude? A constant theme on /. is the "anti-science" or "anti-intelligence" attitude in the US. Why is an "anti-ability to bolt a few parts together" attitude any better?
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
I would assume that part of the problem would be the inherent safety problems with assembly by the untrained. Not safety with the actual assembly, though I'm sure there could be a fair share of collapses, or miss use of tools, but the safety of the vehicle on the road. What happens if as soon as the car gets up to 50 mph, the axle comes loose?
"Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
I put together and drive cars that look like 1950's alien spaceships. It's just my thing, you know.
Hey, everyone knows you always have parts left over when you do it yourself. You must be one of those 'safety' people who want to take power from the people. Enjoy your time in hell, communist!
Er, what I meant to say was,
I agree.
I don't like Linux. This doesn't make me a troll.
> You built it yourself. Why would you be taking it to a repair shop?
Because... it doesn't work? Because you've botched the ignition or torqued the steering improperly or pinched a wire somewhere?
> And what is with the can't do attitude? A constant theme on /. is the "anti-science" or "anti-intelligence" attitude in the US. Why is an "anti-ability to bolt a few parts together" attitude any better?
Oh, there's obviously going to be many successes. Lots of people have successfully built kit cars -- the AC Cobra replicas, Lotus Seven, etc. I'm not disputing that people who put together kit cars couldn't do this. I'm wondering aloud if this is a way to solve the carbon footprint of construction. I'm having a difficult time believing that the kind of person who wants to build a car to reduce their carbon footprint is the same kind of person who builds a Pagano in his garage.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Right, only two are available today. But the rest are coming out in the next couple years. Even if some (or even a large chunk of them) were cancelled or delayed, that'd still be a huge number of vehicles. And while perhaps a third of them are luxury or performance machines well beyond an ordinary person's price range, most are not. More expensive than a gasoline car, sure, but nothing that you can't make up in reduced operations costs.
Do you work at Taco Bell? The guy at the drive-through said that to me last night.
1. Microcars are so short that any non-professional driver of any vehicle with an elevated driving position is not going to see them, and you do not want to be hit by a large vehicle in a Microcar.
2. They're pretty much useless in snow or mud.
3. Without adequate alternative electricity sources, plug-in cars run on coal. The energy per unit of pollution is better than gasoline, but when people drive more because they don't have to pay for gas...
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Mod parent up. This is likely the main reason why this project will never see the light of the day. I can't imagine a DIY vehicle getting approved over road safety.
I hadn't known there were so many idiots in the world until I started using the Internet -Stanislaw Lem
It happens all the time in the UK. There's a healthy market for kit cars (well, car kits) and some people design and build the entire thing themselves. You build it, the man from the VOSA comes round, makes sure the brakes work and so on, gives you your SVA (Single Vehicle Approval) certificate and you're good to go. The requirements are lower than for production cars (eg. no crash testing, for obvious reasons), but as long as the brakes and steering work and the wheels won't fall off it won't be a danger to other road users - the safety of the driver/builder is their own problem.
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Ever heard of Kit Cars?
It's been done for years. Sandrails (dune buggies), hot rods (some very custom ones are more or less ground up built).
This is like building Gentoo from sources to get around patented codex and binary driver license problems.
When McCain allows off shore drilling they'll all go away again. Electric bullet dodged by auto companies... again.
"I can't imagine a DIY vehicle getting approved over road safety."
All that is required in my state is to document a reasonable number of the major parts (to answer any questions like "how do I know they aren't stolen?") and coordinate with DMV to send an officer by to inspect it. Upon his approval title will be issued. Also works with antique vehicles from states that didn't require titles for transfer.
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With cars certain things like how tight the bolts are screwed on matters. With the plug on the oil pan you don't want to do more than hand-tighten it, but you sure as hell want to do more than that when putting on the wheels. People who don't know things like that are going to have some time trying to put together their own car.
The Toyota RAV4EVs with the same type of batteries still work fine.
Do you work at Taco Bell? The guy at the drive-through said that to me last night.