What I have learned

I have been logging some major hours researching the EV (electric vehicle). I have learned a lot and I have driven my wife nuts in the process. I stumbled across an excelent (for youtube) video documentation of a car that gets converted to electric. The Guys name Is Gav and he lives down in New Zealand.


If you have time I highly recommend watching all 20 videos in his series. They get very exciting by the end.

My first major surprise was how incredibly simple an electric car actually is. It is almost laughable. An electric motor can go for a million miles or more and your only maintenance going to be the batteries and new brushes for the motor every 50-100 thousand miles (thats a $20 part). You have no oil changes, no spark plugs, no fuel system no cooling system no heat sensor, no air intake (aerodynamics can improve dramatically)- nothing. Its just incredibly simple and simple is a beautiful thing.



An electric car will be extremely quite. Electric motors are almost silent compared to an internal combustion engine. Cars that are designed from the ground up to be electric like the General Motors Saturn EV1 can be extremely more aerodynamic than a car that has to use the air circulation for intake and cooling. The front of the car can be completely streamlined. That means air runs smoothly around the car on the highway and wind noise will be much less than what we have today.


Batteries do indeed really still suck in the grand scheme of things. There have been a few advancements but Lead Acid batteries are still the standard for things that require big power like a car (That is most likely what you are using to start your car). That is pretty sad considering they were invented over 150 years ago. The newest and best battery out right now is the Lithium Ion battery. That is what you have in your phone and laptop. They are quite a bit better than batteries of the past but the price is insane. You would spend $15,000-$20,000 to power a car. The EV1 from the late 1990's had a range of 75-125 miles Using lead acid batteries. The new Tesla Roadster witch has lithium Ion batteries will have a range up to 220 miles. You will still have an issue with fast recharges though so they are by no means road trip material. I have also learned that the average American drives about 30 miles a day. Your average Home built electric car can do 40-50 miles a day some as high as 60. Lead Acid batteries can recharge up to 80% in 3-4 hours on a normal 110 outlet. A 220 outlet will get you there twice as fast. topping the batteries off is going to take another 3-6 hours. It will take another 3-6 hours to finish topping them off when they are depleted. A home built EV will need 500-1000 pounds of batteries. The good news is there are several small companies that claim they are on the verge of major breakthroughs in the battery department. I am keeping my fingers crossed.

If you are going to convert a gas powered car to and EV you are going to want to find something with a standard transmission. Cars with automatics will shift to soon and will make the motor very inefficient. Automatics also need to idle to keep the oil flowing through the transmission. An Electric motor will totally stop when you are at a stop light. Also when driving an EV you don't have to have a clutch with your manual gear box. You can put it in 2nd and start from a complete stop. Electric motors like to REV up and they are very efficient running at 5000 rpm. They also produce torque from zero rpm allowing you to start in gear with out a clutch.

You can build electric car for Less than $1000 but thats not the norm it is rather inspiring though:


The average person will most likely end up spending between $3,000-$1000 to convert a car. If you run lithium Ion batteries You are going to spend over 20k.