Truthfully, how hard would it be to build your own electric car?

I have a short drive to work, and could easily get away with an all-electric car that I plugged in each night. Since Detroit isn't going to make me one, and I doubt a decent foreign one will be allowed ashore, is it realistic to research building my own? What about a conversion?

I'm not a mechanic by any means, but I'm also not inept with tools. I mean, I'm fairly mechanically inclined (when I'm not being too lazy LOL) So, what do you think?

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"1. and in 3 or 4 years, what do you do with the massive battery that is
now shot and worthless?

Just wondering!"


The battery, the power source. Solve that and you would be richer than Bill Gates.

Why was it deleted? I can't imagine something THAT controversial on a thread about building an electric car!

you going to do with that giant battery after 3 years.

Doesn't seem that big of a deal. I actually wouldn't have thought of that, but the person who said they use a series of recyclable car batteries is right. I assume this person thought you needed one GIANT super battery? HAHAHAHA.

you trade them in and they are recycled like any other car battery. Batteries are not the problem. There are a lot of DIY electric cars, I'm sure google will turn up lots of them.

to do, at least in gearhead terms... The problem is that it is likely to be so expensive in terms of time and money that it may not make sense for you to do the conversion. Maybe a hybrid car would be a better choice?

Expensive I'm sure, but never stopping at the gas pumps could recoup those costs quickly. I don't know.

either as a hobby or as a statement. After all, I could see how you could spend 10 or 15 thou to convert a car to electricity, you'd have to save a lot of gas to break even. And even in Europe, where gas prices are triple what we pay here, I don't think electric cars are that popular. Or are they? I know they love their diesels there.

why not walk or buy a scooter? It's just a thought. I've actually been interested in what you are talking about and even asked my electrical teacher in college. He didn't seem too interested in entertaining the idea for long. I do have another teacher who may actually be the type who'd consider helping student come up with idea, but he's sort of flaky and can't seem to think outside what the text books tell him to think. So the will would be there, but not the "know how".

Too far to walk. It's about 8 miles one way. A scooter has been a thought of mine for a long time, but I want something for all weather. I'd have to drive in the hot, hot, hot Oklahoma summer heat, the very rainy spring, and the cold, sleet, icy, snowy winter. Oklahoma weather is varied, so I'd need an all-weather mode of transport.

you could buy a scooter or take a closer look at how one is built and modify it to add weather protection, maybe. :D

and this seems like a really cool electric car.

That's my kind of ride. Worst mistake I ever made was selling my '73 Super Beetle.

and how many batteries?

Range?
top speed?
conversion cost? (I understand the electrical controllers, relays and switches are the most costly components)

Sorry about all the idiot questions, but I have a VW chassis that I'm thinking of converting over.

where a guy bolted a DC electric motor in place of a gasoline engine and filled the back seat with batteries. That part was *relatively* simple. The tricky bit was the controller, which this rig was built to test. The article written by a backyard inventor who was developing a solid state motor controller. It's doable, given the necessary level of expertise, but it's no easy task. The trick is in the motor controller.

I am looking at the GEM, which is a low speed vehicle, and now trying to find out info on insurance. The GEM can only be driven on roads with speeds of less than 35 mph, though. I live in a city where you can probably go most places on streets with 35 mph limits or less.

I have been finding out some good info from someone in the group (to be sure to get the 2005 model and a gel battery, for instance).

Here is a whole list of electric car groups on Yahoo:

http://autos.dir.groups.yahoo.com/dir/Recreation___Sports/Automotive/Alternative_Fuel_Cars/Electric_Cars?show_groups=1

I joined the NEVs list. I'm sure there are groups for building or converting cars, too.

Unfortunately, I live outside the city where the roads are only 2 lanes, but they're straight for miles and the speed limit is 50 MPH. I almost get run over in my Oldsmobile by assholes in their SUVs, I'd be downright terrified to drive the GEM to work. So, speed is a factor. I need to be able to keep up with AT LEAST the speed limit. I've got no interest in going faster than that.

He used a Geo to start with, has a 9 inch dc motor powered by 16 12 volt deep cycle batteries, hooked up series, parallel providing 96 volts. No problem going 50, 60 miles. You would have to ride in it to believe the acceleration. I believe he has less than 2500 bucks in the whole project. I'm sure he would be more than happy to share his experience with you.

Now, that sounds cool!

that. I'd love to hear more about it.

I wonder if an older Nissan could be converted...

you guys up with him. Very nice man.

Especially for short urban trips to the Grocery, library, etc. :shrug:

That perform motor and battery control functions ...

One at least can help convert energy from cars that are coasting back into the battery .. IE recharging the battery when you are decelerating ....

The production electric cars already do this ...

That would be a good idea for people like me as well. I have this strange phobia about getting a dead battery on an important day or away from home (away from home would be worse). I used to think that if I bought a "spare" battery for the car and carried it around in case I got a dead battery, it would be a great idea. Several people have told me this idea wouldn't work though. I always wondered why.

New electric car with 250 km autonomy.
Planned to be sold in 2007-2008.
Each battery pack weight 25 kg for a volume of 25 liters and can deliver 2.8 Kw under a voltage of 30-40 V. The car is powered by 8 of these packs (see batscap.com).

Link to a website with pictures and specifications (in French, sorry) www.clean-auto.com/article.php3?id_article=3634

Main specifications in "FrenGlish" below :

Engine
Max Power 50 kW (70 hp)
Permanent power 30 kW (50 hp)
Torque 170 N.m
Max RPM 10 000 /min
Max Battery volt 374 V
Min Battery volt 243 V
Air cooling max temp. 40¡ C
Transmission weight 15 kg
Engine 65 kg
Differencial ( ?) 20 kg
Pack batteries BatScap
Lithium-Metal-Polymere 27 kWh
Battery weight < 200 kg
Time to 100% capacity :6 heures
Battery fast loading :a few min for 20 km
Suspension AV McPherson
Suspension AR Bras poussés et
levier anti-couple ( ?)
Carrosserie high strength steel
Aluminium
Composite recyclable
Performances
Max speed 125 km/h
Acceleration 0-60 km/h 6"3
Autonomy 200-250 km

vegetable oil (which is was originally built to use until Diesel's mysterious death). They are presently doing this a great deal in Europe and Willie Nelson is involved with that in our country. It is supposedly incredibly economic.

Remember when searching Yahoo or whatever to form the search terms into a phrase using quotation marks.

"electric car" will search for that specific phrase, rejecting a lot of off-topic noise.

Search Ebay for parts as well.

You can make a conversion that hooks a motor to the existing transmission, which makes things easier.

Look for a small (light) victim vehicle.

The batteries are the most expensive part. No getting around that unless you have room to do some sort of hybrid such as running a Ford 3G alternator off of a 6HP lawnmower engine (thus providing 130 amps of current).

You may also consider a diesel car converted to run on veg oil. Search for "straight veg" or biodiesel for conversions.

Golf carts are small electric cars. Go find someone who sells used golf cart parts to find the motors, controllers, chargers, etc...

I ran across a lot of these people when I used to build battlebots and was hunting for parts.

They know a thing or two about electric cars.

PRAIRIE FIRE GT WINS WITH PATENTED E-TORQ BY BODINE ELECTRIC
North Dakota State University's solar racecar, Prairie Fire GT, at 55mph down Route 66 near Alton, IL on its way to winning the Stock class in the American Solar Challenge cross-country race. Twenty teams from universities throughout the world participated in the 10-day, 2300 mile race from Chicago to Los Angeles along "the Mother Road" of America. The NDSU Sunsetters team was the only one to use the patented e-TORQ(TM) electric motor produced by Bodine Electric Company of Chicago, IL. (PRNewsFoto)
CLAREMONT, CA USA 07/24/2003

http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/07-24-2003/0001988743

http://www.lindsaybks.com/

Haven't looked around the site that much, but it seems to be a treasure-trove of odd-ball engineering (my favourite kind!)

Oh, look at this:
http://www.lindsaybks.com/bks/producer/index.html

Making your car run on "producer gas", created by burning wood scraps, coal, road-kill, whatever. I reacll they did this in Germany in the 40's and there was an article in "Mother Earth News" (back before they found there was more money in "How to solar power your Malibu hillside mansion" articles)on how to run a small truck on one of these thing made of scrap parts and fueled with trimmings picked up at construction sites...

There are PLENTY of published items on how to make your own electric cars. There was a really good one at the Indianapolis library that went into pulse-width modulation for speed control and all sorts of ideas.

Make an adaptor plate to hook the electric motor up to the transaxle or whatever gearbox there is. Don't need the clutch, don't need the gears, it's just an easy way to get the rotation to the wheels...

Use deep-cycle batteries, and recycle when they're exhausted.

Go for it! Good luck with your research!