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A Honda Civic With no Gas Tank (Video)
It took Dr. Adam Blankespoor two years and $14,000 to convert his 1996 Honda Civic into an all-electric plug-in vehicle. He's an automotive engineer and researcher, but if he can do it, you can probably follow in his footsteps and create your own electric vehicle if you are so inclined. He talks about a 45 mile range, with 30 miles as a practical limit. That's not competitive with the Tesla S, but there's also a massive price difference to consider. This is another person Slashdot met at the Ann Arbor Maker Faire. If you want to see what kinds of electric vehicles other have made, possibly for inspiration, the Electric Vehicle Photo Album is a good place to start. And if you want information on how to build your own electric car, using "electric car conversion" as your Google search term will put you on the track of more electric car information than you can shake a Tesla Coil at.
SHOCKING!
$14000 buys an awful lot of gas.
Citing says 45 miles range but the dude says 50... 5 miles is kinda a big difference.
But, for another grand or two, he could have bought a brand new 40+ MPG IC vehicle with a warranty, all kinds of new safety features, and a range of hundreds of miles with a "recharge" time of about 5 minutes.
I don't understand why this is a story at all. People have been building short range electric vehicles since the 70s. Unless the summary was supposed to read 450 mile range with a 300 mile practical limit, I don't see what's exciting about this.
if you don't stop drivin' that hot rod Lincoln
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
I was once so inclined, but the legal issues surrounding getting a car you largely built/heavily modified legal to drive on public roads were a bigger deterant than the cost/time.
$14,000
He talks about a 45 mile range, with 30 miles as a practical limit.
This is of course why electric cars are still not practical. Pay more, get less. 30 miles might be fine for most people for most daily driving, but a cheaper gas car is fine for all people and all driving. They'll take off when you go further on a battery charge, and pay less! Right now they are mainly for hard core eco nuts (moot point where I live as we have coal power).
If he were to fill up with petrol once a week at a cost of 40$ US he would be able to fill up for 8 years at the same cost of this conversion, not including the cost of charging. A Conversion to natural gas seems like it would be a more economical and easier conversion.
What's the new /. logo???????????????? Cant figure it out!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
HELP!!!
I need near-on-demand access to a vehicle that can get me 300 miles in 5 hours, including stopping to refuel. I make such trips a few times a year.
Other than that, I drive less than 30 miles a day.
I only need one vehicle.
So, either I buy a conventional car and only use it, I buy a conventional car and use it a few times a year and I use some other vehicle for every-day use, or I hope a 24-hour rent-a-car place opens up near me and that they always have affordable conventional or other long-range vehicles in stock for daily-through-weekly rental on a "walk up" basis.
Right now, the single-vehicle solution makes the most sense for me.
All we need to be is inclined to make an electric car and we can "probably" do it? Then obviously there is not a need for engineers if just anyone with the inclination could probably reproduce their work.
at "warp drive"
Hybrids have been out for quite some time, emergency response crews have adapted their processes to assume there is a battery pack and high voltage source in a vehicle.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
If it's a '96 Civic with "mods," the de rigeur for that means a 4ft tall wing, garish paint, and a fart-cannon exhaust.
If you really want an EV (as opposed to a hobby car) that you can count on for a reliable commute, why spend $14,000 turning a $2,000 16 year old car into an EV, when you can buy a Mitsubishi i-Miev for around $22,000 (after tax rebate)? For $6000 more you get a full factory warranty, twice the range, a car that's been designed to be safe in a crash with the extra battery weight, and no hassle from your insurance company if a charging problem burns down your house. Or for a few thousand more, get a Nissan Leaf for an arguably better car?
For me, his 30 mile practical range is a little tight... my commute is 10 miles each way - a detour to run an errand or due to a traffic accident could leave me uncomfortably close to the max practical range of the vehicle. Fortunately, my 10 mile commute is still well within comfortable biking distance, so I don't typically drive at all.
What would happen if you ran your gas vehicle into a nuclear facility...
We can both come up with facetious arguments.
For US$7,000 you can buy a nice VW Golf TDi, which really will get
40mpg. Actually it will get much better than that but the point is that
this so-called engineer has modified his Honda such that it is instantly
far less capable than cars you can actually buy.
Oh, and the range on the Golf TDi ?
600+ miles per tank of fuel.
Of course a buddy or volunteer network of recharged battery swap points would *never* work. Nor would having recharge coils in / under parking lots, service stations, ... anywhere cars stop at for a while. And, what advantage can there be for owning your source. Stupid, right? Not to mention the absolute absence of business opportunities and burocratic expansion inherent, I mean, absent from certification, normatization, insurance, service ... yeah. Bad Idea.
Oh boy, here we go.
Crumple zones and chassis structure are not touched. In a low-speed collision, nothing more happens. In a high-speed collision, there may be some leaking of electrolyte (The same way the lead-acid battery in your ICE car can leak), but there will be no dangerous inflammable liquids spilling around. Electrically, the battery pack is automatically isolated via inertia switch and circuit breakers and isolating fuses, along with contactors which separate on 12v power loss.
No. In an accident, the system is automatically isolated, as noted above. In addition, the power-carrying cables from front to back run along the underside of the vehicle, usually along the old exhaust tunnel, keeping them far away from anywhere emergency services may be operating.
Oil gets spilled. Some metalwork gets crumpled.
Some metalwork gets crumpled.
There are others who do this as a business. One of their celebrity customers is Anthony Kiedis, of Red Hot Chili Peppers fame, who had his 67 Camaro converted to run on electric power only.
What would happen if you ran your gas vehicle into a nuclear facility...
They would scrape the remains of you and your car off the sides of the impenetrably thick concrete cooling towers.
Immovable object, meet easily squashable force.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I think a primary reason why you might want to do a conversion is that you then have total control over parameters of performance, and can tweak them to your hearts content.
Also you can take a car you really like to begin with and simply make it run on electric, rather than having to buy one of the few electric car designs existing (Have not seen the i-Meiv but I hated the Volt's interior and dash)
I agree with you about the range on this being just too low. I'd like to see a do it yourself hydrogen conversion, which would be similar but eliminate the battery and give you great range.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The only problem I see with that, is the cost of a conversion. He spent $14,000 but the donor vehicle and time has to figure into that somewhere. You can get a Nissan Leaf for probably just a hair more than his investment and it goes twice as far on a charge and is a much cooler vehicle than a Honda civic.
I actually used to do these conversions myself. But these days there is really no point unless you are going for performance. If you want an EV that can outperform a Leaf or Volt then you can build it yourself, unless you can afford a Tesla.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/30/automobiles/autoreviews/one-big-step-for-tesla-one-giant-leap-for-evs.html?hp
Hey, just incidentally the New York Times reviewed the Tesla Model S today. There seems to be a lot of electric vehicle haterz on Slashdot lately, I don't get why, but if you're legitimately interested in the tech, rather than just Detroit astroturf, the NYTimes review is certainly worth a read.
"Put simply, the automobile has not undergone a fundamental change in design or use since Henry Ford rolled out the Model T more than a century ago. At least that’s what I thought until I spent a week with the Tesla Model S."
The summary says that this Civic-turned-EV cost two years and fourteen thousand dollars. Then, it says that it's no comparison to a Tesla S, but to keep in mind the difference in costs. So, let us do just that. Homebrew Civic EV: 45 miles per charge. Old, possibly structurally unsound body. No warranty. Seats 4 or 5. Acceleration is probably worse than the original car's lackluster performance. Possible voiding of homeowner's insurance (should something go wrong while charging). Cost -- $14,000 plus two years' time. Tesla S (60kWh): 220 miles per charge. New car with warranty. Safer body to meet modern crash standards. Seats 5 to 7. Sub-6 seconds to 60. Cost -- $60,000. The summary is right. There is no comparison between the two cars. The Tesla is not only a better car, but it's a better use of his money and time. It is more than five times the car for four times the money. Other than the street cred one gets for driving a sub-standard homebrew EV (if that gets you any in his circles), I can't see any justification for the time and money he pissed away.
"osake no hou ga, biiru yori ii" to omotteiru.
30 mile range is a 15 mile radius. That's barely beyond practical bicycle range. If he had picked up cycling (with or without a helmet) instead of converting his civic to electric, it would be better for the environment, he would be healthier, and it would cost a whole lot less too.
Yeah, I could to that or I could just buy a Prius. With the trade-in from my Honda that cash outlay might be comparable, and it would only take a few hours. :)
Of course there's plenty of room for research in this field. I wouldn't mind learning that type of engineering and having a corporation pay me for my time. There are plenty of people doing that and... designing cars like the Prius, Leaf, Volt, etc.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Sure, it's the same on the outside, but what about the stuff inside and possible outcomes if, say, it gets involved in a serious accident?
It won't explode if it doesn't catch fire. The JOL won't hurt the operator unless the engineers who designed the car are dumb enough to run high voltage cables through the doors.
I can't see how an electric car can be anything but safer than a gasoline car.
Free Martian Whores!
I guess he ain't that good an engineer as other can do larger ranges on a car like that for less.. and who even wants to convert an ugly civic :p
saw a guy converting his 'old' Jeep cherokee for less with about the same range (or a tad more), so I'm not impressed with a light newer car like that..
Stephen Wozniak on the Homebrew Computer Club
http://www.atariarchives.org/deli/homebrew_and_how_the_apple.php
I converted my 2003 Pathfinder to a "hybrid" of sorts. All it took was to fabricate a custom driveshaft assembly with a "donut" electric motor attached around it - rated at 5HP (3500W).
I built a custom solar panel that takes up the entire roof space between the roof rails, which provides just over 600W in full overhead Sun.
The four operating modes are:
Whenever the throttle position is closed, the energy from the panels is used to charge a 1680W-h battery unit (a 140Ah marine battery).
When the throttle position is open and the manifold pressure is higher than -15", the motor runs full steam from the battery at 200A (2400W) plus whatever the solar panel is doing, for a peak output of 3000W (4HP).
When the manifold pressure is lower than -15", the solar panels just dump into the motor directly at whatever they are putting out and the battery turns off at whatever state of charge it is.
Any time the battery voltage falls below lockout, the solar output is latched to charge the battery until the battery is full.
The sticker mileage was 15/18, and with my driving style I always got around 17/20. After I installed this system, I get 18/22 if it's sunny.
No, it wasn't worth it economically, as the extra 2MPG will never pay for the system, but it was a fun nerd project. It certainly didn't cost $14K though - more like $5K, but whatever. It was a fun experience.
If this was some regular Joe, you may have a point. This guy is a ENGINEER. We take safety issues and extreme scenarios seriously. However it is frequently the managers and accountants that forces compromises. This gentleman is fettered by neither.
I think his point is the production hybrids are fine because they are built and made by large corporations with at least some incentive not to build death traps (anymore anyway).
Likewise, emergency responders will have a basic idea of how hybrid cars are put together and where the dangerous stuff is. If it's a self made car, you really can't be sure of what is where.
"I mean, why he put the batteries in the A Pillar I'll never know...and sadly neither will that Jaws of Life operator..."
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
I thought it was illegal to tamper with Federal Emission Controls, including removing them from the vehicle. All of the articles are slashdotted, so I can't go read them.
For those of you who have read it, did he address the legal issues surrounding removing the federally-mandated emissions controls from the vehicle?
there's something very very wrong with converting pre-existing ICE cars to electric. look up the phrase "mass decompounding" for a clue, but in essence it's that a ICE vehicle is designed around carrying one very large heavy object which is typically 15% of the mass of the vehicle: the engine.
the *correct* thing - ecologically - is to design and build a vehicle that's right for the environment, based around the most efficient kind of drivetrain: parallel hybrid. it's possible then to get below 350kg, still carry 4 passengers, and only need about 15kW (20HP) even to reach 65 to 70mph. the problem is that for the average person, designing an entirely new vehicle from scratch is pretty much beyond their time and resources. the problem for manufacturers is, as anyone who has read "The Other side of Innovation" knows, to throw away the entire "efficient business production model" which has been highly optimised to make ICE vehicles and start from scratch - this is virtually impossible for them. (then there is the problem of laws regarding spare parts - but all of this is outlined here http://lkcl.net/ev/hybridcars_article.html)
so we are left with a rather shitty situation in which the only way in which the average person may make themselves "feel better about the environment" is to purchase an above-average amount of one rare earth metal (lithium), purchase an above-average amount of another rare earth metal whose extraction methods are seriously environmentally questionable (neodymium), purchase an excessive amount of a metal which is increasingly becoming in short supply (copper), throw far more of these materials into an excessively-heavy and over-engineered vehicle than should really be necessary, and call this utter waste of resources "progress".
even manufacturers trying to make us "feel better about the environment" by designing parallel hybrids - they're doing so by taking pre-existing 1.5 tonne vehicle designs and shoe-horning in expensive batteries and expensive motors (which adds to the weight and the cost) and everyone wonders why they stop making the vehicles when the government subsidies stop.
all-electric cars are a DEFINITE no - regardless of whether they're made by the average person or made by a manufacturer. we simply don't have enough lithium or other battery material to go round, for everyone in the world to have an all-electric vehicle. we also don't have enough copper or neodymium for everyone in the world to have 1.5 tonne (average weight) vehicles. we also don't have the Grid Infrastructure in cities to cope with the extra power. major cities in 3rd world and emerging markets are *ALREADY* on brown-outs, overload, or 3-day weeks.
the bottom line is that we *have* to get the power usage down, resource usage down (less weight equals less materials), and the best way to do that is with a 10kW electric motor in combination with a 2-stroke 5kW diesel engine as a Parallel Hybrid. the size of each of those two engines can be made absolutely tiny, yet there's enough power to do 70mph (eventually).
and if this all sounds like "talk" - it's not. my vehicle's also listed on evalbum.com. the main web site: http://lkcl.net/ev. i have a 2nd design in the planning phase: it's a 4-seater. given the issues and challenges involved in getting vehicles out there, if you'd *really* like to help the environment, then help me make sure these designs get put into production - please don't spend $14,000 on converting a pre-existing vehicle: consider spending $8,000 on a light-weight vehicle that's designed to be efficient in the first place.
If this was some regular Joe, you may have a point. This guy is a ENGINEER. We take safety issues and extreme scenarios seriously. However it is frequently the managers and accountants that forces compromises. This gentleman is fettered by neither.
There are different types of engineers. Not all of them build cars.
So where does he pay his road use tax?
"A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
I mean, if you want a reliable home desktop, you might as well just spend a little bit more money and get a pre-built one from Dell or HP or wherever that has a three year extended warranty and comes pre-assembled? You don't need to do any of the work putting it together, and you spend way less time agonizing over which particular brand of RAM you're buying from Newegg.
You are correct, but missing the point as a lot of people are. Electric cars are important for reasons that have nothing to do with CO2 emissions. US electricity production is 100% produced from domestic sources, none of it from imported sources. Gasoline requires the US to pay various loathsome countries who don't have our best interests at heart. Anything that reduces US dependency on foreign oil and shifts it towards domestic electricity is a huge plus. We can worry about producing cars, even electrics, in a more environmentally friendly way after we break the dependency on foreign oil, or at least reduce it to an amount we can get only from trustworthy, friendly nations (ie. Mexico, Canada, Norway).
Really, $14,000 (plus the cost of the Honda) for 30 mile range. Think I could retro-fit a golf cart to do that for much less. Green is nice but so impractical when you look at the cost and the carbon footprint required to go green at this point. Fossil fuel is a better source for energy conversion right now and would be much better if the government would get out of regulating the efficiency. Many of you are to young to remember the first Honda Civics that got 60+ MPG with ice cold AC running. I had several and could drive a week on $8 worth of gas. When the government mandated that a computer had to be in the car to emissions gas mileage dropped drastically. By forcing all cars to run at a 14:1 stoichiometric ratio you are making most engines run at less than optimal power / emissions / fuel economy. The CVCC engine was efficient and clean. Easily passed any state emission checks and who doesn't want to get 65 mpg (67 mpg was the best i ever got).
I know guys that have converted other cars to all electric years ago for less than $14K. One did it for $5500 and over 70% of that cost was the batteries.
Electric conversions are not new or innovative, I helped do an electric conversion of a "Le Car" in high school automotive engineering class back in 1984.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Their cars are so insanely expensive that anyone who has the money to buy one, could easily afford a $30k car and the gas for it. Plus, unless you're generating it yourself or stealing it, electricity isn't free (laws of thermodynamics and all that). This is why comparing some guy's homebrew EV project against a Tesla car makes it seem all the more frugal. The reality is though, there are electric vehicles on the market (Nissan Leaf, Chevy Volt) that the upper-middle-class can actually afford. If you figure this guy's labor was equal to what he spent on parts (as in, he could've spent the time working a second job), that's $28k right there he could've used to buy a Leaf. He'd then have something originally designed as an EV and new, with a warranty.
So, basically, he did this because it was a hobby. And by that metric, at least he has something to show for the $14k and the time he spent. I just don't see any practical reason for someone with different interests to follow in his footsteps. If you want an EV, simply go out and buy one. Of course, if you already have a perfectly working IC vehicle and the means to spend $30k, you're probably not hurting too much at the pump in the first place.
Honestly, I'd rather see more development in home fuel ethanol brewing. It appears the outdated anti-moonshining laws have put up a lot of red tape that tends to scare people away. Still, being able to make your own fuel for the IC car you already own is a lot closer to being a solution for rising gas prices than replacing or entirely rebuilding your existing car. Throwing the baby out with the bathwater, and all that.
---
DRM is like antifreeze, to the MPAA/RIAA it's sweet, to the consumers it's poison.
good luck with that. There was a case in the US a few years ago where someone was sued for not paying gas tax since they ran their car on cooking oil
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
14000$
Price of Gas today: 1.24$ per Litre.
MPG for a 1996 Honda Civic: 31 or 13.18 kmpl
14k$/1.24$ = 11290.32 Litres of gas
11290.32 * 13.18kmpl = 148,806.45 Km.
So I would say from an "energy" perspcetive it is practical if perhaps your electric motor and batteries can even last 150,000 KM of travel.
From every other perspective, with a nominal trip range of 30 miles (48.2 Km), you would have to take 3087 trips or full charges before that is even possible.
So likely under any loosely defined definition of practical, I don't think it could be thought of as such. That is not to say that under certain very specific conditions it might be however. Living with a 20Km commute that you drive more less every day changing at night that might work. Of course even then, it would take you over 12 years of doing so (working 250 days a year) just to break even. So even then it is a bit of a strech.
However he probably enjoyed doing it, talking about it, and hey he just got an article on Slashdot.... :)
I think the arguemnet here, isn't if it is practicle or not, but the fact that gearheads routinely spend that on cars for no other purpose than they really want to...
Why would you go to all that work, and make it so you have to plug it in? Most likely he uses AC motors, and why would you not just customize the motor with magnets configured to perpetuate the rotor? I am just saying, if your going to put that much work. Why not just go a little farther?
Why does it have a 5 speed manual transmission? I thought that one of the advantages of electric motors was the low-end torque, eliminating the need for gear shifting.
If any of the thundersky cells falls out of line you will easily kill it without a BMS.
I don't understand why EV hobbyists think they can get away with cutting corners on this shit.. It may work fine now but as the cells age it will turn to shit.
US electricity production is 100% produced from domestic sources, none of it from imported sources.
Really? When did you surrender and become part of Canada then?
What if someone asks pedantic questions such as "You are uphill from a bunch of zombies, need to get past them but don't have gasoline in the tank to make Molotov cocktails... what now?"
This has been talked over for years. If we had a viable energy source comparable to gas but without the pollution, EVs would be a winning solution for everyone. But we're never going to get there unless people keep pushing the tech! They are a solution for short range commuting now for many people, and things will only get better as time goes on.
My Dad is in his 70s, and has converted a Geo Metro, a motorcycle and a riding lawn mower to electric drive. The Geo had a range of about 40 miles due the the batteries available, which was more than enough for his short trips to town and such. He did this because it was fun and to prove that it is worth doing. He now owns a Nissan Leaf for the same reason. Say what you want about the looks and range, that car is FUN. It's so cool to boot it up and then whisper down the road. An overnight fill-up and he's good for the next day, no need to schedule a trip to the pump. No it won't do long drives, but that day is coming.
And to those that complain about the electricity coming from coal fired plants, which would you rather have: millions of inefficient pollution sources that are expensive and difficult to replace or a few large sources that can be regulated and improved as tech is developed?
People were doing this type of "conversion" back in the 70s. With exactly the same sort of pathetic 30-45 mile range. For half the cost, even adjusted for inflation. It would have been news. 40 years ago.
Personal rant: Is anyone at Slashdot actually taking time to double-check submissions any more? Most of what I see as of late isn't actually news or is news that you see everyplace else as well.
They had electric cars that worked far better than this ten years ago, bu they were TOO good and got squashed. See the documentary "Who Killed the Electric Car?" for more info: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKgpXDs25TI
I don’t understand why it needs coolant for the speed dial (dimmer)? If he is using coolant then it is not efficient. Is there efficient way to adjust the voltage for the motor to control the speed?
this must be stopped for the sake of future movie goers. Can you imagine a world where when cars
* are shot
* driven off a cliff
* collide
* roll
* run into a freeway divider
they DON'T explode.
PS
write your congress{man, woman, critter}
And not make an all-electric "most boring shit of a car on the planet", then I would be happy.
Seriously Toyota and Honda create some of the most boring cars in the history of automobiles. They have boring designs and boring engines and boring performance and handling. People that drive the majority of cars from these fleets pay more for something that speaks volumes of how these people have no style or excitement in their lives. When I think of Accord or Camry, I think of 60 year old retires driving 40km under the speed limit. When I think of Civic and Corolla I think of university grads that haven't developed a life yet.
Toyota dropped an "all-electric" vehicle roll out citing that is little demand for electric vehicles world-wide. That is entirely NOT true. There is just little demand for the kind of crap Toyota has been rolling out as hybrids and electric cars over the years.
I mean, companies like Kia and Hyundai are at least TRYING to add excitement to their cars with innovative design and packing them with tonnes of features you can't even get as an option in a Honda or Toyota, but most Toyota and Honda have to be about the most boring car companies on the planet for style and performance, definitely 2nd and 3rd after VW whose only saving grace is allowing you to pick a peppy engine as an option on most of their boring derivative vehicles.
If you are going to make an all-electric vehicle then please make a statement, not convert some tired piece of shit driven by the most boring people on the planet.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
It didn't run very well, at least until I got a new gas tank for it.
My dad who works for a propane company converted his old truck to propane a long time ago. It works out fine since he basically gets his propane for free. If we have to we can even hook up the smaller tanks used for barbecue grills if we are running low. The truck is rarely used however. Mostly now it plows snow in the winter and moves equipment every now and then.
Interesting seeing it drip water from the tailpipe as the byproduct of propane combustion is water and CO2
I thought the hybrid cars usually had any high-voltage wires encased in a specially-colored jacket. It should be simple enough for amateur builders to do the same.
Project forkenswift was much cheaper and has similar range...
http://forkenswift.com/
Giant stun-gun.
It should be simple enough for amateur builders to do the same.
'should be' being the operative word. You willing to bet, quite literally, your life on that?
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
If we had intelligent inspections in this country, it shouldn't be a problem: an amateur builder should be able to get a DMV inspection of his/her car and that should be one of the rules for EVs or home-built hybrids. In many states, they already have special inspections for home-built cars, where a DMV person will do a basic safety check. Considering how few people actually make home-built cars of any kind, it really shouldn't be that hard to have one competent DMV person in every metro area able to do such an inspection with an appointment. Note that I'm talking about a one-time road-worthiness inspection, when the amateur builder is applying for a license plate and registration for his vehicle, not the annual safety inspection that some states require and is usually done at independent businesses.
He's an automotive engineer and researcher, but if he can do it, you can probably follow in his footsteps and create your own electric vehicle if you are so inclined...
...and if you also happen to be an automotive engineer and researcher. And have $14,000 to spare.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Quite reasonable. I remember having a conversation with a gear head friend of mine on how he and his son had redone the brakes on his truck.
:) Yet there's no certification needed to pass, and frankly you'd have to drive the car (trailering it would make it too expensive) to get to the inspection station in the first place.
:)
My thought is, well he's good at that, but if I tried it I would not want to be around said car on the road
But yeah there are *many* things about our auto processes that are just amazing Rube Goldberg machines
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
$14000 buys an awful lot of gas.
Considering my EK Civic (97) has a fuel economy of 6.5 L/100 KM (combined) and I actually achieved this doing 80 KM p/d (1/2 highway driving and 1/2 city driving) $14,000 would by approx 10,000 L @ $1.40 a litre (average price here in Oz). The tank capacity of an EK is 45L so that's 222 odd refills. I used approx 34 litres in the Civic of Fury each week doing around 500 K's a week, thats 294 refils so that's just shy of 5 years and seven months.
Then again, my EK was a VTI model which had better fuel economy than the previous GLI models which the articles author had due to the fact it had VTEC (Honda introduced the VTI in 1997, the first Civic with VTEC). So his figures will be a little different (at a guess, 7.0 L/100 KM combined).
Still, he deserves full hacker credit. I have to wonder if he's added any extra weight. The Civic's 1.6L engine would be best described as "gutless" if the body was not fantastically light. The car weighed a little under 1000 KG which isn't bad for a 5 seater sedan.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
The only thing stopping it from going into mass production is greed, corruption, bribery, blatant lies, etc.
In Brazil a guy converted a Beetle (called Fusca in Brazil) into a full electric car not so long ago: http://www.ecofusca.com.br/ The problem is that those mods are always so expensive.
Why does everyone impose there own values on this guy's hobby? For every "prius" out there, there is another vehicle that makes more financial sense, so don't use the $ argument.
The reason his system cost $14k is that it's REALLY nice, I have seen it in person. The fit and finish looks better than OEM and he spared no expense. It's not mass produced so obviously it is not cost effective for the "masses". What would happen if you tried to buy brand new parts to make a corolla into a prius? The price of the components would not make sense....
I converted a Ford Escort for $5k in parts. It has a 35mile range (my commuter, my wife has an elantra that she bought new for 13k and gets 39mpg hwy...savings will buy a lot of gas :)), e-motor has twice the power of the original car (will smoke a prius), and it is quiter at any speed than my father-in-laws buick.
I get 175mpge if calculated using electricity cost, 70mpg considering well-to-wheel efficiency and all losses (prius would be about 33 considering transport/refining), and per unit energy even dirty coal is many times cleaner than todays in-vehicle gasoline engines when consumed in an ideal environment on a large scale.
The $5k will be paid back in 30k miles.
Lastly, back to values (I'm not making judgements or taking a stance one way or another) your values might be different than others. Some might pay more for comfort, some might rather pay more to use less energy (alternative energy will never be cheaper than current fossil fuel prices), some might pay a premium for cleaner fuel, some might pay more to keep money out of big oil and hostile locations, some might pay more to buy Made in USA components etc, etc, etc.
Me, I pay less (after 30,000 miles) for more power, less noise, less pollutants, less CO2, and yes, a much lower range, and higher crash risk (due to older car not the lack of carrying around the 100 sticks of dynamite equivalent of energy found in a tank of gasoline) than any new OEM car (including evs due to my much lower weight). Also, no one buying a brand new car can ever justify it from a financial standpoint (loses 20-40% after the first mile), but the "masses" do it....not to mention the higher insurance premium associated with a new car.
The batteries do weigh about 3.5X more than the gas they replaced, so some thought would have to go in where to place them, how they are secured, what happens to them in a crash, and how the weight affects the rest of the car in a crash. It is doable with this light of a battery.
A heavy battery (long range or cheaper lead-acid) probably wouldn't be safe in a small car unless it was specifically designed for it.
Yeah, if this guy was a regular Joe, he would have done the conversion for a couple of grand with a forklift motor and some relays.