Looks a bit "Rube Goldberg-ish" to me, but creative for sure.

starting at 4:07 on the video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OY2RPSUyIrc

The guy on the EV skateboard is nuts!

That think looks sketchy. He should have at least moved the pee bottle before the video shakedown.

I honestly don't understand the whole 914 EV thing. To each his own though. Certainly wasn't a easy thing to build and my hat's off to that creativity. However, I did get a kick out of how the Tesla dude commentary just blew past the fact that the owner admitted to the batteries losing capacity as the battery pack ages. 100 mile range when 1st built? That is just a show stopper for me.

I'd rather have the skateboard. That is awesome. I used to skateboard to class when in college. When people heard those wheels clicking over the sidewalk expansion joints, the sidewalk just cleared out and made a path.

The fact that he has a helmet on to ride it tells you about all you need to know.

When chi-town was selling an electric kit from a 914ev, if not for my total lack of electrical knowledge, I would have purchase it. Our campus has free chargers and a 20 mile range would be fine for getting around town. I was thinking a really small lightweight LiPo battery pack and lots of fiberglass to keep it light and fun. But I need another project like ....

I totally get it grandpa. It's the future man.

I think your pain meds might be interfering though. It was actually the 914 guy talking about the 100 mile range and having to hyper mile to get that now due to decreased battery capacity. That doesn't seem bad for a 10 year old home conversion. Remember, the early internal combustion automobiles didn't have great range either.

This one is a bit too cobbled together to suit me. but I'd love to have a 914EV for hops into town. Instant torque baby. My biggest beef with 914 conversions is loss of trunk space.

We've had a Tesla charging station for almost 10 years in Bozeman now. It was several years before I ever saw a car plugged into one. Now when I drive by, there is almost always one or two cars getting a juice. It makes me smile.

So what do we suppose the life expectancy of someone with one of those skateboards would be?

What I don't get is the desire to make a really expensive EV golf cart and to pay a premium to do so and then think that somehow we've saved money or made the planet greener.

There is an abundance of EV's out there with better range than 100 miles and have they have A/C and heat to boot. All, for less than $10k . . . yet they aren't highly desired. Simply supply vs. demand.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/2012-Nissan-Leaf/2...OEAAOSwFBZdgUcP

It's not that I don't get EV's - I understand them better than the average bear. I understand both the Pro's and the Con's. It's just that the Con's rarely get addressed.

EV's have been around forever. The early 20th century auto industry was 1st heavily EV. Our beloved Dr. Porsche even played in the space a bit.

https://cleantechnica.com/2018/02/25/38-per...-electric-1900/

It wan't until the invention of the automatic starter that eliminated the hand crank of ICE engines that allowed ICE to really take over. Especially for the lady drivers!

So let's not pretend EV's are new, novel, or will single handedly change the world. Whether or not they are the future is debatable. In dense urban centers, they probably will. In areas that have vast distances to cover in a single day . . . probably not.

I'm 100% with you on max torque at 0 RPM. It simply can't be beat. I've driven all the Tesla products and they are a ton of fun in a straight line. Brutal acceleration without the usual powertrain noise is different.

Let it be noted that I've said multiple times on this site that I also don't get building up a 400 HP 914's either. Simple fact is that a Tesla P100D running Ludicrous mode will easily out run said 400 HP 914 in a straight line which what most roads in America are.

I do fully understand the desire to create, fabricate, and experiment for it's own sake . . . and for that I say hooray to the 914 EV, as well as the 400 HP 914. But in either case, let's not overlook the Pro's and Con's of such conversions.

For complete clarity . . . to each his own. Live and let live. I don't have to understand . . . . just go have fun.

Sometimes it’s the journey, not the destination.

Agree completely.

Here's a fun video of a device that did change the world that is a mixing of fact and fiction. I'll let you figure out what is fact and what is fiction.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsGrFYD5Nfs

Interesting conversion. I thought he said it cost $20k with the batteries at $7300 were the most expensive. He mentioned the batteries are losing their capacity thus range is reduced from the initial range.

Electric vehicles will continue to grow in popularity especially when the price comes down closer to gas cars. The demand for EV will also increase if the price of gas goes up for a long period of time.

Now there's a man who gets it.

Only one way to get a 914EV. Take the journey.

I'd say EV cars right now are about where ICE were in the 1930s. In 50 years there will be a Tesla forum of old farts lovingly restoring their classics and waxing nostalgic about the good old days before EV cars were "ruined" by all the modern technology.

I'm with you on that one.

All batteries will lose range as they age. No one has found the miracle chemistry yet.

However, very few are talking facts about what happens as the grid increasingly get loaded with EV's simultaneously as we move toward green energy grid that is not very good at producing energy during non day-light hours. Supply & demand curve applies to electricity as well.

There is speculation that the parked, charged EV's will serve as the load leveling mechanism. Modeling on the subject is incomplete at best. Consider the possibility that you wake in the morning to find EV has not fully charged due to load leveling. Then what? It's the EV equivalent of having had your gas tank siphoned.

We are already starting to see EV's get hammered with road use taxes since they are currently escaping gas taxes. To date that has been a free ride for EV owners but it is going to have to come to an end if EV's become the norm.

It will take EV's to do more than just come down to the price of conventional cars to increase demand. Consumers currently demand range and ease of topping off to a full charge in approximately 5 minutes. Fast Chargers can't even come close with current battery technology. Battery swaps are interesting but consumers are not accepting of this at the moment.

It's all very interesting with lots of cards in play for sure.

The market will decide in the end.

I read that Porsche has developed an 80% charge in 10 minutes. Coming very soon. The average daily mileage for most people is low enough that an every night charge isn't crucial. I also read that China has a solar highway that will charge your car while you drive. There's your range extender. I think the future will move to autonomous vehicle ride sharing. We just order up a ride like Uber and a driverless vehicle will show up when we need it. We won't own it, maintain it, have to finance it or provide space for it. We order up the size car we need for that particular trip. It will take your 10 year old to soccer practice without a parent driving. Take my college kid back to school by driving through the night while she sleeps. Commercial trucks will be there even sooner than cars.

All are interesting concepts and there is truth in there as well. However, I challenge everyone to go dig deeper.

We may live on Mars someday. I'm not opposed to that or EV's. However, in the meantime what is pushed is the positive press and talking points without a critical analysis of cost, feasibility or timing. Dig into the time to bring these concepts to market and what the potential pit falls may be.

If you happen to live in Thompson Falls, MT do you really think an autonomous vehicle will be there when your child is sick at 2:00 am and needs to go to the hospital? Is the answer simply don't live there? What are the consequences of pushing the majority of the population into overly dense urban cities?

Not buying or selling, just saying that critical analysis is necessary and doesn't get much airplay.

There are several EV cars already on the market with the range that would be acceptable to me (speaking as one who lives in an area where long drive distances are the norm). Some of them even affordable. Charge times continue to come down. I predict that my next new car purchase will not be an EV, but the one after that will.

Oh, and EV cars sound WAY better.

Everyone always forgets about the lithium and how toxic it is to mine, work with in manufacturing and the fact it can't be reused so it's a rolling barrel of toxic waste when it's done.

An electric cars manufacturing carbon footprint exceeds that of a pzev gasoline car in it's entire expected lifetime.

And a majority of the power consumed by these wonder cars is generated from fossil fuels or coal so it keeps making the carbon footprint bigger.

They aren't environmentally beneficial. It's just a convenient way for people to think they are.

Depends on what you mean by sounds better.

Without the conventional powertrain noise, in the EV, the road noise and windnoise becomes much more noticeable. It does become a dissatisfaction to some buyers.

Is there a solution? Sure, but, it adds more cost and more weight to already heavy EV's. Weight saps range.

There is no free lunch but it is a fun engineering exercise.

Again all great points. I'll play devils advocate for a moment.

Because Lithium historically has been pricey, battery designs continued to evolve using even less Lithium while still performing well. Lithium prices are down recently in part, due to Lithium conservation and the reduction in demand for Chinese EV's. Why is China demand down? In part, because the Chinese government is reducing its subsidy of EV's!

However, there are other expensive metals used in batteries that aren't well known, or widely discussed. Namely Cobalt, Nickel, etc. These commodities markets are very volatile even under the relatively small market share that EV's have. What happens as EV's come up to scale is anybody's guess.

https://www.greencarreports.com/news/112477...other-materials

The EV situation is complex indeed.

In 2015, the Union of Concerned Scientists released a report finding that EV have lower cradle to grave emission than gasoline cars even when run on dirty electricity. EV do have a higher carbon footprint to produce compared conventional ICE, but over the life of the vehicle, reduced tailpipe emissions more than make up for it.

https://www.ucsusa.org/clean-vehicles/elect...le-ev-emissions

Lithium batteries CAN be recycled, it just often isn't.

https://waste-management-world.com/a/in-dep...energy-clean-up

https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-bus...thium-recycling

Of course EV are not perfect and will present many new challenges. Is any technology a perfect solution for the problem it is intended to solve? Why do we make perfect the enemy of the good?

Another thought... I wonder how many total engineer-hours have been devoted to gasoline vs EV vehicles since their humble beginnings around the turn of the 20th century? I'm guessing it will be some time before the cumulative effort spent on perfecting EV power plants matches that of combustion engines.

I love the spirited debate.

Like most reports, the Union of Concerned Scientists report has a definite bias toward EV's. Better than most for sure, but, the bias is there none the less with some carefully chosen assumptions at best or deceitful assumptions at worst.


Let's start with the assumption that a Nissan Leaf will only require or use 1 battery in it's lifetime - this clearly isn't the case based on field performance. See the previous eBay ad I posted for the Leaf, the owner admits the battery is shot and range has been negatively impacted. Vehicle had 50K miles and range had been reduced to 40 miles. Using the study life cycle of 179,200 miles, Nissan Leaf's will definately need more than one battery in their lifetime. Maybe 3 or 4!

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Let's take a look at how fuel economy was compared for Gas vs. EV's.

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These are suspiciously low and are from MY15 vehicles Why not include any Hybrids that offer excellent Fuel Economy and aren't tethered to EV chargers for long trips? Hybrids are a wonderful middle ground between Gas and EV and a far better choice for the average consumer.


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They also used a strange assumption on the large car side. Is anyone is really considering a Hyundai Equus or a Chrysler 300 vs. Telsa? Seems to me that the Hyundai was thrown in there to drag down the average MPG. Over a 179,200 mile vehicle life assumption, the fact that they put the Hyundai Equus in there will add up to an disadvantage to the gas vehicles. In all fairness, if they really wanted to push down the numbers for the large gas cars, they could have chosen the Chrysler 300 with the V8 Hemi or a Hellcat and they didn't.

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But allow me to push back on your statement:
Why do we make perfect the enemy of the good?

I honestly don't think we are. EV's will continue to propagate if for no reason other than forced Government mandates that you will have no choice on. People are not yet choosing them in mass for a lot of different reasons. Even you mentioned that an EV will not be your next car. Why wait? Don't let perfect be the enemy of good.

There are lots of good reasons to wait, particularly in your neck of the woods. As far as I could tell, the study referenced makes no accounting for diminished battery range in cold weather, the need for more EV charges per mile, and the increased contribution to overall EV emissions in cold climates.

I do a lot of winter testing of vehicles and I assure you that every time I've gone out to an EV on a cold morning 0F or below, the battery is not fully charged (EV's have to use battery power to warm the pack just to get it to charge) and once under way, the range diminishes much faster than the optimistic projection of the instruments due to need to heat the cabin, defrost the window, and the increased parasitic drag of driving though snow.

Overall a great study and well footnoted. Much better than most where they seem to carefully omit their methodology. I would like to look into the footnotes a bit more and encourage others to really dig into any study or report and understand what is being reported Good or Bad.

Agree w Superhawk996 and would add this about the overall premise - Don't EV a classic car, any classic car. If you feel compelled to save the planet or hate the oil companies or whatever reason, there are thousands of other cars that are usable for your purpose. The 914 thrill is about light weight, balanced handling,and blipping the throttle to rev match a gear change, all with having that sound behind you. Play car Dr. Frankenstein with an old Accord. Leave the 914s alone.

I have 2 EVs (Ford an Nissan) and they are very practical and fun. The only car I fuel is the teener.
Range is not an issue, I commute 70 miles per day and recharge at night. Never got stuck empty.

I don't have a problem with EV's, and I think the idea is great, but practical application in some areas (rolling blackouts) might not work out so well.

I recently had the opportunity to drive a Tesla, and loved it. Fast as my 964 and nearly silent. I thought it was the coolest car I've drove in a long time, but that's just me.

I seem to remember reading that a 914 held the EV land speed record for several years.

I've said for 20 years now, if we were really serious about EV's; just take away gasoline engines from NASCAR and make them run on electric motors. They'll figure it out in 5 years or less. Most technological advances come through transportation (going faster or farther) or trying to kill people (war )

Good point. Change happens when there a compelling reason.

Okay, let's dig in. Starting off by claiming bias is a classic tactic for casting doubt. Sure, all science is biased. It's conducted by people and we can't deny we have biases. Good science and the reports produced from it tries to be as objective as possible so as not to allow the bias to dictate conclusions. You provide a couple examples of bias but I'm not sold. Let's look at those.





You are cherry picking here. You can't extrapolate an ad from someone selling their lemon or abused car to represent the average for the entire technology. As you know, there are many factors that influence the lifespan of a lithium battery. Who knows the story on that particular car or how representative it is of ALL EV vehicles?

What we need are data on actual observed battery longevity. Unfortunately, these are a bit elusive. Without spending too much time on it, the best I found was this article that cites an independent study that found the Tesla Model S lost about 5% capacity after 50,000 miles on the road; Tesla's own data indicating the Model S batteries retained 80% capacity after over 500,000 miles, and a statement from Nissan that they " having to swap out only a small number of batteries in its Leaf EV, despite selling many thousands of units during its last eight years in production." The Leaf battery warranty was 10 years or 100,000 miles.

https://www.carfax.com/blog/how-long-does-t...an-electric-car

Also, you misread the report. The study life cycle was 179,000 for combustion vehicles, but only 135,000 miles for the EV cars - acknowledging the limited (but at the time of the report, uknown) lifespan of the batteries. None of the above supports the idea that an EV would require 2-3 batteries during the report life cycle.




I'm totally confused by this These numbers look pretty typical for 2015 to me (which was the year of the report). Our last new car purchase was in 2007 for a mid-sized car in this class. We really wanted something that would get north of 30 mpg highway but the only models that got that mileage at the time were so poorly built, we probably would have replaced it already. The best we could do was 29 mpg. I really don't understand why you think those fuel economies are low.

They didn't include hybrids because they are not in the scope of the study which was to compare cradle to grave carbon footprints of EV vs. ICE cars. I think it would be interesting to see the same analysis on hybrids, but without also including manufacturing and end of life numbers, it would not be appropriate to toss them into the comparison of operating emissions.



Again, I don't understand the criticism here. They were standardizing as best they could on curb weight and vehicle footprint to get as close to an apples to apples comparison as they could. I'm sure there are other ways to make the comparison, but this seems like a reasonable approach to me.



You are conflating a couple things here. The perfect being the enemy of the good statement was intended as a broader statement of the tendency to attack new technologies intended to address a societal problem by focusing on the flaws rather than judging overall whether it moves us closer to the desired outcome. IMO, EV technology looks very promising considering the short time development has been seriously focused on building them into a viable alternative to ICE vehicles. I don't get the naysayers.

As to why I don't buy an EV on the next purchase, it's because I agree with you about consumer choice. If I could afford a Tesla, I would own one because it checks all of the technical boxes for us. I just don't make a Tesla salary. I'm guessing by the time we replace our next vehicle, the price point for that level of technology will be in our grasp. There is a high chance our next car will be a hybrid though. We really wanted one the last time, but they just weren't making small SUV hybrids at the time and we probably couldn't have afforded one if we did. I'm hoping this time will be different.



I agree that an adjustment for climate would improve the report. Given that at the time, they had to extrapolate just to estimate longevity, it was probably beyond their capacity. In our case, the majority of our electricity is hydro so I doubt it would change the conclusion for us. It might in heavy coal areas though where the EV benefit is marginal.

As far as general driveability, I doubt even our frigid climate would be much of an issue. It's not like ICEs are 100% reliable or operate optimally when our temps dip below -20. That's why we have heated garages, and we wouldn't need a full charge to get home after work. Tesla installed charging infrastructure in this region well ahead of the demand and we have charging stations less than 100 miles apart along Interstate routes even through the backwater places. They've already shown that building the charging infrastructure is doable.



No report like this is perfect (I know because I've written a few myself), but this is the best I've come across to answer the question of life cycle emissions/carbon footprint.

It uses petrol. It just does.

I’m neither buying nor selling. My broader point is let the consumer choose and to present them with both the Pros and the Cons based on factual data.

I really do like EVs in a lot of ways. They are just being sold as the right solution for everyone everywhere and that clearly isn’t the case.

The fact that that report referenced the Nissan LEAF was a gift. I didn’t cherry pick the eBay example. It is widely known within the industry that Leaf batteries are failing at a rate far above their competitors. Your Tesla data is pretty sound but may be a touch ambitious. Time will tell.

We’ll split the difference on life cycle. The smaller life cycle was indeed for the short range EVs of which the Leaf applies. However there are an abundance of leafs that will never make it past the 10 year 100,000 miles without replacement. The full life cycle did apply to the high range EV's like Tesla. It really was a gift horse I didn’t expect to find in the report.

With respect to the hybrids not being in scope, that may be a fair point but their exclusion ignores the immediately viable solution and analysis in favor of bias toward EVs. Hybrids are the exclusion of good in pursuit of perfect.

I agree that all science is biased by human nature. We just owe it to ourselves to look at both the Pro and the Cons and to let the consumer choose. At the turn of the 20th century no one had to incentivize the switch from EVs to ICE. When EVs are truly ready and better they will not have to be incentivized to move people from ICE to EVs. Especially when we are subsidizing $100k Tesla’s at the expense of the middle class.

ICE's have such a head start in the automotive world. It will be interesting to see how EV's and hybrids evolve.

Disclaimer up front: My daily driver is a Tesla Model S. Bought it used with 41K miles, now at 72K.


I find it laughable that everyone expects EV buyers to justify their purchase on energy efficiency and environmental impact alone. It's a factor to be sure, but nobody I know purchases a car based on a single criteria. Style, performance, comfort, practicality, economy... all of these things play a role in virtually every car buying decision.

In my opinion, EVs excel in several areas: Incredibly low maintenance, high convenience (literally eliminates one 10-minute chore per week), many highly practical -- e.g. my Model S seats 5+2 and has two sizeable trunks, torquey acceleration.

Tesla employed some brilliant electrical engineers, as well as some brilliant automotive engineers. There aren't a lot of compromises to it.

As far as battery longevity: My S 60 was rated to 208 miles when new. At about 72K miles now, it'll charge to somewhere between 190 and 198, so I've lost a little bit of range. But most Tesla drivers have documented about 5%+ degradation within the first couple years which then levels off and remains flat for a long time. The battery conditioning & thermal management system is pretty impressive.

Most EV buyers don't go back to ICE; I count myself among that majority... at least for DD.

OTOH, I still have a carbureted 2056cc 914 in the garage for when I need to scratch that itch... there's room for both!

At our finest we are a collection of individuals working to a common goal of consumer satisfaction and environmental sustainability. At our worst are a centrally planned bureaucratic government trying to force a one size fits all approach on the consumer regardless of their wants and needs and geographic location.