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.

[PThompson509]

If I were doing an electric conversion, I would use something like this....

(IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/uploads_offsite/images.thecarconnection.com-1143-1417973477.1.jpg) These generate 100HP each, and you don't need the gearbox or halfshafts or any of the other associated stuff.

It would need some controls to make the electric braking work, but it would be a really good solution. Cut the floor out of the rear trunk, and fill the space for the engine and trans with batteries. Use the space for the gas tank for more, and you still have the front trunk for more if you like, or for cargo.

And you could do it as all wheel drive by converting the front struts to use them too.



Or the other alternative is to use the wheel motors, and put a APU from a small airliner in the engine compartment. It runs at a steady speed all the time so it is really fuel efficient. <sarcasm>Oh.. wait you can't turbine a 914!</sarcasm>

Hub motors have a LOT of potential, but they also have a big problem with weight. A lot of EV startup companies try to use hub motors (for all the reasons we like them), but end up using the existing system due to the unsprung weight.

Also, not sure if I would really like to have the high power exposed and flexing as much as would be needed to feed these monsters. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Cheers!