It’s a convertible. It was cheap. It has four seats, and a musty smell. And he’s past the point of no return. Join a totally non-mechanically-minded newbie on his quest to build an electric car that doesn’t look like it fell out of a cornflakes box.

After successfully testing the drivability, it’s back to the workshop to get stuff removed to paint the battery racks and sort the best place for the charger and finally add the tacho sender to the gearbox adaptor plate. The fuel port assembly is done now also; I cleaned up the inner rubber mount and gasket-sealed the hole with a rubber bung where the original fuel inlet was, and Nathan cut out the new hole for the power through to a new fascia plate where the 20A connector will be mounted …

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 ,000 (24 lead acid batteries). ( http://www.latimes.com/classified/automotive/highway1/la-hy-wheels2-2008jul02,0,3144785.story )
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.

My thoughts are to buy an older car, as small and light as possible, and then convet it with as few batteries as possible.

I have been recently been looking into building an electric car. normally the electric car kit is to be used with several 12 volt batteries in sequence to make 144 volts to power the motor. I on the other hand want to use lithium iron batteries (which are really costly) using the same method with the normal car batteries to get better miles. the only problem is that each battery has 3.2 volts. which means to get the required voltage I would normally put them in sequence but for that I would need around fifty and when each battery cost around 0 u.s. it’s very unfordable not to mention the weight over load. that’s why I would like to use something like 10 lithium iron batteries and then have some sort of circuit to increase the 32 volts to 144 volts. sorry for the long question do you have any ideals!
Thanks I for the people who have answered so far, I know a bit about electronics and have some skill in that area so I will take all of your suggestions into account.

Really easy, isn’t it? At least much more than manufacturing with sulfuric acid, or to make the chips from any mobile phone. Notice that Li-Po Batteries were designed to be cheaper and lighter that Li-Ion, now, Why can’t I drive an EV with them? (These are Lithium-Metal Polymer batteries, not Li-Ion)

Toyota Rav4 EV MSRP K Not Available from Toyota anymore! Heres the plan 1.Talk to your local EV conversion Shop 1.Average conversion cost about K 1.Find out the battery information ie How Many 2a.Go to www.pluginconversions.com 2a.Purchase about 24 Nilar Bipolar Large Format NiMH Batteries 2a.Cost about 00 2b.Or go to www.Lionev.com 2b.Purchase Lithium Batteries 2b.Cost about K 3.Go to a Toyota Dealership 3.Purchase a Toyota RAv4 Tip: Wait for the end of year sale for a cheaper …

Most of the hard part of cabling through the sub-frame has now been done. The car’s been pretty well stripped to the bone but all this work should be worth it. While a lot of EV builders get their cabling to run under the car, protecting it in the sub-frame is my preferred option and this has been checked by the road-legal engineer and so far so good. Metal saddles are used to clamp the conduit flex where exposed, so nothing is loose. The main issue has been space in the engine bay, making …

Shai Agassi, founder and CEO of Better Place, his company is working on creating sustainable transportation systems. Hes teamed up with Renault-Nissans Carlos Ghosn to transform Israel into an electric car Mecca and hes working with other governments around the world to forge public/private partnerships that will tackle the transportation side of climate change You can follow his ambitious plans on his blog, The Long Tailpipe.

We have now removed the ICE and cleaned the bay and are ready to install the motor.

Join me for my first drive of an electric car! This one is a Daewoo, converted to 120 volt with an 8″ ADC motor. This one’s