Has anyone been thinking about building an electric car (home-made) for themselvees any time soon? Options

[shawnbem]

I just read of how a man in Los Angelese has converted an old Porsche 914 to an electric car with a 60 mile range for $18,000 (24 lead acid batteries)
I thought to myself that's a good idea. Probably better to buy an electric scooter though, if you don't need to take the freeway often as is the case in L.A.

I'm now doing some investigation into that idea and I hope to begin building my own electic car also. Does anyone else have similar plans?

I have heard about how its actually better to convet old small pickup trucks (Ford/Toyota/GM) to electric pickups because the box can hold more batteries and the springs are easily upgraded to hold the extra tonnage. Lead acid batts are heavy but they're cheap, so that's why Lithium Ions are shunned for now.

[carr914]

Here's some info on mine:

http://www.evalbum.com/3439

I've got over 4 years of trouble free driving. I checked on the internet and so far there are over 48 914's converted to electric power in the US.

Jim

I say BS.

I say your range is optimistic at best. Hell,the Nissan Leaf or the BMW I3 can't do more than 100 miles.

You've added 500 pounds of weight in places it was never intended by the original designers. Fun to drive? I doubt it, especially if you add the low resistance, skinny ass, low grip tires.

It cost you $20K (if believable) to degrade the performance of the car with little hope of ever recovering such costs.

Sorry for getting so serious, but to me, sacrificing a classic car to fulfill your whims of being a "greenie" strikes me sacrilegious. There are plenty of shitty Corolla's out there you can play Dr. Frankenstein with.

I rode in Jim's car yesterday and I would definately say it was Fun! I think he told me after he sold off parts off the 914 his conversion was not that expensive.

Gotta ask, do you get on every Suby, -6, Corvair, V-8 Conversion Thread and tell people their cars suck?

[Big Len]

Here's some info on mine:

http://www.evalbum.com/3439

I've got over 4 years of trouble free driving. I checked on the internet and so far there are over 48 914's converted to electric power in the US.

Jim

I say BS.

I say your range is optimistic at best. Hell,the Nissan Leaf or the BMW I3 can't do more than 100 miles.

You've added 500 pounds of weight in places it was never intended by the original designers. Fun to drive? I doubt it, especially if you add the low resistance, skinny ass, low grip tires.

It cost you $20K (if believable) to degrade the performance of the car with little hope of ever recovering such costs.

Sorry for getting so serious, but to me, sacrificing a classic car to fulfill your whims of being a "greenie" strikes me sacrilegious. There are plenty of shitty Corolla's out there you can play Dr. Frankenstein with.

I rode in Jim's car yesterday and I would definately say it was Fun! I think he told me after he sold off parts off the 914 his conversion was not that expensive.

Gotta ask, do you get on every Suby, -6, Corvair, V-8 Conversion Thread and tell people their cars suck?

Never said his car sucked pal.

If you reread what I wrote, I'm not buying his range numbers. Toyota, Honda, MB, BMW EV's, with the best engineers can't achieve those range numbers in the real world. Only Tesla can, but that's a whole different price range.

You said you drove in Jim's car. Did you drive it or were you a passenger? If you drove it, can you honestly say it was as much fun to drive as your own with the added 500 lbs?

Using his own numbers, it costs $16,500 to convert to EV (plus the car and charging station) to drive a car with very limited range, 6 hours to "refuel", and adding 25% of the car's original weight. And he didn't save it from the junk yard either.

Perhaps I have a bit more reverence for 914's than you do. To me, the car is a rare, classic sports car and it should be respected as such, but that is not to say it can't be improved upon. But I put the 914 in the same category as a Austin Healey 3000, a Triumph TR4, a VW Karmann Ghia or others that I mentioned. Doing an expensive EV conversion to any of these hardly seems like an improvement and in my opinion, does a disservice to the original concept of the car.

[jtg]

[/quote]

Never said his car sucked pal.

If you reread what I wrote, I'm not buying his range numbers. Toyota, Honda, MB, BMW EV's, with the best engineers can't achieve those range numbers in the real world. Only Tesla can, but that's a whole different price range.

You said you drove in Jim's car. Did you drive it or were you a passenger? If you drove it, can you honestly say it was as much fun to drive as your own with the added 500 lbs?

Using his own numbers, it costs $16,500 to convert to EV (plus the car and charging station) to drive a car with very limited range, 6 hours to "refuel", and adding 25% of the car's original weight. And he didn't save it from the junk yard either.

Perhaps I have a bit more reverence for 914's than you do. To me, the car is a rare, classic sports car and it should be respected as such, but that is not to say it can't be improved upon. But I put the 914 in the same category as a Austin Healey 3000, a Triumph TR4, a VW Karmann Ghia or others that I mentioned. Doing an expensive EV conversion to any of these hardly seems like an improvement and in my opinion, does a disservice to the original concept of the car.
[/quote]

I appreciate the comment T.C.

Big Len, I appreciate your view also. Since I really like driving my 914 I would like to express my point of view. I am not a professional race driver or very experienced at performance driving. However over the last four years it's been a hoot to drive my 914 around town. No maintenance to speak of in that time. I regularly drive a 100 mile round trip that has a combination of city and interstate driving. With real conservative driving I got 163 miles once. Why this much versus BMW, Nissan, GM? I spent 9k on batteries. It's not rocket science, just Physics. Light weight car and lots of stored energy. My empty weight is about 2540 lbs. Not that much more over a fully fueled stock 914 and a lot less than a normal 4000# auto. With 200 ft-lb of torque (dyno tested) at zero rpm I do not notice the extra weight. (914 experts might) This car has more torque and more HP than the original 1.8L.

I never waste time at a gas station or spend 6 hours to refuel. Every few days I just plug the car in the evening and in the morning it's got a "full tank". No oil stains on the garage floor. No oil or spark plug changes. Standard tires. Instant heat in the winter. I'm not a "greenie", I could care less. I just wanted a fun car to drive. It is used every day going out to eat, groceries, visiting friends, etc. It's our "daily driver". For around 20K it has been a good vehicle choice for us.

When I bought the car it was rarely used, poor engine, bad transmission, unreliable electrical systems, etc. I did not do the electric conversion with high performance as a goal. That's easy to do and many other have done so with great results.

I'm not going to call your comments "BS". I agree with some of what you say. I just wanted to respectfully give some facts and an alternate view.

Jim