Electric Vehicles

Thought I'll share this with you'll and especially Piercedtiger since he is the Mod Guru around here.

I met a guy who converted a 1990 Honda Civic to a 96 volt electric vehicle. He claims he gets between 50 to 100 miles per 8 hour charge and the car can reach 87 MPH on less windy days. I've now got the bug and am looking around to see what I can do for the long haul since gas prices are going no where, but up.

I am thinking of a S10 or a Ford/Mazda Ranger (lighter the better for range) type truck and fill the bed with batteries for longer range. Electric vehicle kits are freely available but not cheap. Pay back period on a conversion is about 5 years or much less the more you drive. The average cost per mile driven is about 2-3 cents and there's no oil and filter changes and no emissions. Some states do provide rebates and tax breaks.

Anybody have any expertise or feed back to share with the rest.

 

lol I'm just good at following directions other's have figure out, and picturing things in my head if I need to figure it out on my own.

With that said though, I know how you feel.

I have a feeling you'll have a LOT of weight to get moving if you fill the bed with enough batteries to run it completely for more than a few miles.


I've heard of people adding batteries to Priuses and converting them to plugins that get 100mpg or more (can't remember now), but that means buying a $20k+ car plus the conversion. And you might still need gas. I've seen a few all-electric cars, but most are limited range. Like dragsters or land speed record cars. Hell, even saw one power by something like 200 cordless drill batteries! Either way though you're talking a LOT batteries and the weight that comes with them. Plus distributing the power and hoping nothing shorts out on you.

I would see if you can find kits or plans, and then see what vehicles they work with or recommend. That way you at least have an idea what parts you need and how to build it. You'll also need some sort of charging system. Too much electrical for me to figure out or attempt... lol You'll have to be very careful building it or you could run into some serious issues. (I remember the Monster Garage episode where they did the drag racer with Dewalt Li batteries, and shorted out a battery bus. Started a small fire, but luckily none of the batteries exploded.)

 

Oh, it would be cool if covered the bed cover (assuming you'd have one to cover batteries in the bed) with solar panels to help maintain the batteries. Not sure how much good it would do, but if the truck is sitting outside at home, at work, shopping, etc might as well make use of that.

Oh, if you could get a couple forklift batteries you might get some range out of them, but they are 600-1000lbs (or more) each IIRC. They run all day running the hydraulics, lights, etc on the forklifts.

 

If you have an extra $100,000 lying around I recommend this... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1C44JQU7Pc

 

Check this out: (electric Ford Ranger)
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Cars-Trucks___FORD-RANGER-ELECTRIC-VEHICLE-EV-with-Chargers_W0QQitemZ260240321802QQddnZCarsQ20Q26Q20TrucksQQddiZ2282QQcmdZViewItem?hash=item260240321802&

 

Most of the electric conversions I've seen get more like 30-50 miles. The problem with converting is you're starting out with a relatively heavy vehicle (by electric car standards). You might try googling it to see what's out there and what kind of results people are getting. This guy had basically the same idea:
http://www.timnolan.com/etruck/etruck.htm