brainstorming an electric vehicle
 

I know, I just bought a new car...

but I want to build an electric car. if anything as a commuter for my wife or for running to the grocery store.

requirements:

cheap conversion (maybe $2000-ish?)
easy conversion (duh!)
at least 60 mile range on a charge

the first thing I think of us a small pickup truck. The bed can hold the batteries and I won't need to do much fab work to get them to fit. If it's mainly a commuter, aerodynamic issues won't come into play (neither wife or I get on the freeway to go to work). There is also the possibility of adding a small solar array to the bed to help charging in the future.

But I think it would also be fun to convert something like an older honda, or maybe an older VW Bug.

Anyway... would love to hear any suggestions.

How about a n600:D or mybe a VW rabbit circa 1980's

Please don't cut up any of your 600's...

I hate to be a downer, but 60 miles is going to be a serious challenge in a budget conversion. You'll need a lot of batteries. I know Toecutter's got the weight/range/cost formulas at his fingertips. He may chime in. :)

Don't forget to factor in a 25-50% range reduction in winter temperatures. Is there no way of charging half way, at work?

If my wife drives it, it can easily be recharged at work. If I go for the truck conversion, I can do the solar panels eventually.

In all reality, my wife works 3 miles away. I'd like to overshoot actual numbers though, because a vehicle with a 10 mile range isn't too impressive.

I DID see a guy on that austinev site that converted an old late-70s honda civic with a 60 mile range.

But adding range that you don't really "need" just sets up a vicious circle of decreasing efficiency (from added weight, assuming lead acid) and escalating costs to manage that decreased efficiency: more range = more battery weight --> more cabling --> bigger host vehicle --> larger motor --> more powerful controller --> stronger charger --> more batt maintenance (assuming floodies) ...

Since an EV will only ever be a second car for most people with current battery tech, just aim for what you need.

What are your top speed requirements, how many stops on the route, are there large hills, what's the weather like? Given your budget, I'm going to suggest going with a smaller pack with a custom genset... That way you can make sure the pack is always between 30-80% charge in order to extend it's life, get a significant amount of power from the grid, while not having to worry about running out of charge.

Buy a small diesel generator, and use that to power your electric motor, or charging system etc. Then you can have a 10 mile range on batteries, and have a backup plan if you run out of power :)

Edit : seeing the post above, looks like I took to long to post ;)

Can I have the old first gen rex?

That's the wife's car... not mine... besides, I'm going to be painting it soon :)

I thought the EV was for jenny and not you? Boo.

Outta the way! I'm doing 5mph here!
 

I'd drive my old EV to school, but it would take me about an hour to get there and it might get stolen in the parking lot :p :
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If making EVs for 4-year-olds was possible in the late 80s, making an EV for grown people in the 2000s shouldn't be a far stretch!

Or someone could walk into it and get a nasty scrape on their shin.

A friend of mine converted a VW Rabbit pickup about 15 years ago. He used lead acid golf car batteries and had to put on heavier springs. The motor drove through the standard transmission. I drove it and it would easily do 65 mph but the range was only about 30 miles.

Q

If the regular commute is 3 miles, and the roads are safe for cycling, what about looking at buying/converting a bicycle to electric? It'd only be good for part of the year, but it'd be a lot more efficient and way cheaper.

(EDIT: plus you don't have the hassle/expense of inspections, insurance, parking, licence plates etc.)

I wonder if they make those in Metro or Saturn version.:p

The only problem with gen sets as range extenders is emissions. I'm guessing the low end ones aren't very good in that regard, and aren't emissions one of the reasons for going electric?

EDIT: I don't know about bioidiesel emissions. Just talking about gas here.

She actually rides her bike in the spring/summer/part of the fall. She's opposed to getting an electric bike though... something about it being too "dorky."

Maybe I should just convert my spare mountain bike to electric for runs to the grocery store.

If you want to do that kind of range on a budget, you're going to need a small, efficient car to keep battery cost per mile of range down. The batteries will be your largest budget component.

You're definately going to need a lightweight car, with lots of efficiency modifications. A heavy, unaerodynamic pickup truck will drive the battery costs for 60 miles range over your budget.

Try to throw out a few specific vehicles, and I might be able to recommend some setups to you. You will definately be doing a lot of scrounging for used surplus starter-generators and you will need to learn how to build your own contactor controller. It's pretty simple to make a battery charger with a bridge rectifier circuit as well.

One of your N600s looks like a great choice of donor, but you might have to remove the back seats to get enough battery room. And its aerodynamics aren't very good; you'll need aeromods. Even at a modest 30 mph, they will make a pretty noticable difference in range. LRR tires can extend range greatly as well.

Use the crXXX!

Ahh, I forgot he even had a CRX. That's an almost perfect choice for a donor car.

That's worth some further study imo. I know there are small four strokes that are CARB certified for mopeds (Honda, Robin, probably a few others...), so one of those, running at it's most efficient rpm/load with a efficient generator might be worth looking into. Especially compared to any car built before the late nineties, as the combination of looser emissions regulations and low load operation may result in something like a Civic VX/HX having worse emissions and worse mileage. Biodiesel generally results in higher NOx with lower soot/CO iirc because it tends to burn better than diesel iirc, the NOx can be lowered (along with a slight increase in efficiency) substantially with water injection.

The NOx increase of biodiesel is still small. I've seen studies that pegged it at like 6% more than petroleum diesel, but with greatly reduced emissions everywhere else.

Could be a deal here...

"EV in a box" kit:

https://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...5%2B%26fvi%3D1

A CRX is a perfect choice, for electric conversion or not. That said, if you need a lot of battery space and are ok with a 2-seater, why not consider the 86-89 Toyota Celica? It has a *huge* trunk if you take out the rear seats. It has a good Cd, small frontal area etc. See my garage.

Matt: You have several challenges. First, the CRX is your wife's car! Good idea to take care of it, for your wife. Bad idea to fiddle with. Second, your planning on her driving the car. Your toy, she drives? Bad idea to fiddle with.

I'd say go with electrifying your mountain bike. It'll cost a lot less, you can fiddle to your hearts delight, and in the aggregate, if it doesn't work out as well as you thought, you haven't sunk a lot into it.

In either case, I'd recommend not fiddeling with something which your wife is utilizing on a regular basis. WTW

There's lots of cheap electric scooter & bicycle parts on eBay too. I have to force myself not to go looking through it or I'll just end up with another project, when the other N aren't finished yet.

But it also weighs about 2,600 pounds.



On the plus side, it lends itself to some excellent aeromods, and people have succesfully converted Celicas in the past.

https://www.austinev.org/evalbum/613

IMO, an MR2 would be a much better choice than a Celica.

the CRX is not built for the weight, non of it is, you would have to add bracing on to the body for the suspention, and connect that directly to the battery tray, it's a car desined for two 150 pound people and 50-100 pounds of cargo, designed to be light weight, and small.

and you say she doesn't want an electric bicycle because of how they look? what part of how they look?

A quick note - be careful when removing the rain gutters on the roof of the triumph - more welding may be needed. British Leyland cars of that time actually used those gutters as the means of joining the panels together, so, if they are removed :)

How about a Ford Probe? Great shape, and if you gut it to achieve max weight reduction it can probably carry a large amount of batteries.

I bet Jerry would be a proud source of tech info :D

Get your wife to look into Schwinns new elctric bikes. The motor is barely visible, the only thing you realy see that stands out is the small lith battery on the back. They are also cheap by electric bike standards.

I've heard bad things about schwinn's non-bike vehicles. Then again, schwinn has been going downhill too. Wish I looked at the branding on all those e-bikes in japan, :p

For only 3 miles, you could do wonders with an Xtracycle bike with an electric assist.
I really want to buy a Surly Big Dummy when they come out in January and build it up like that. It would be so awesome to be able to haul that much stuff on a bike, and the electric assist would be super helpful under some of those conditions.

I looked at a lot of cars before I found my victim.
1995 Ford Aspire!
Stock I could get 47 mpg out of my 94 so I opted for a hybrid.
The plan is to use electric for the 0-40 mph which is 70% of my driving.
At cruising speeds I can use the stock engine for drive and recharge.

I am basically converting the rear wheels to electric for now with tweaking as time goes on.
I am the mechanic of the bunch so my electric details are kind slim as I have some college kids that baffle me with the hookups.

One big lesson...that little electric motor is stout..STOUT!!!
I recieved the motor already attached to a Ford 9" rear end from an airport baggage tram..48 volts?!!

I remounted it to a Mazda RX-7 independant rear for the first test and got about 15 feet..broke the differential housing.
Moved to a 95 Thunderbird indy rear and it lasted 3 weeks of tests and broke a few axles.
I really wanted the independant rear with the disc brakes and may cobble it together later but I am back to a stout 9" live axle for a while.

The kids I work with are big on electric stuff and tend to get pretty exotic on some of their stuff. I have been working to simplify the schemes.
I am happiest when they take my rear frame unit and cut 70 pounds from it AND compact the electronics from 5 boxes the size of a VCR to 2 boxes that allow for plug-in charging.

Different needs require different strategies.
Our first goal was to get a 15 mile one-way comute for up to 2 people with a
reserve for some shopping.
Whipped that one 15 ways to Sunday with recharging at the workplace.

Second and current goal is for 100 mile per day delivery of up to a half ton basically nonstop in city environment. Think pizza delivery!

The exotic guys goal is 6 passenger, 300 miles nonstop.
My purpose seems to cure them of tunnel vision..they seem to want to reinvent the wheel for every minute aspect rather than use 99 existing technologies to refine one.

Bruce

I don't want to promote another forum but if you check out this one wiki entry it gives a good comparison of the stats of some potential donor cars. You might find it useful...