Ideas for a ev not winter car
 

Hey guys I was just brainstorming and was wondering what some good ideas for an ev could be. My goals consist of it


Cheap less than or around $1500 (very important)

Having a cruising speed of at least 65 mph (would definately be nice)

Having a range of hopefully ~35 miles (little bit less not that big of a deal) p.s. mabye even 20 miles

Hopefully not looking like a total dorkmobile (not very important really)

If anyone has any ideas to toss out there that would be amazing, and I really need to stop staying up till 6 am on days with class, though you totally have to love the 2pm classes so nice! Thanks so much guys

Are you thinking of building an ev yourself? If so, you might consider using a VW bug. I have seen those converted to battery power with a big motor where the engine should be. Not sure the specs of these but you can get an old bug for very cheap and they are very cheap to get parts for. They are also light.
I just did a quick search on ebay and teh samba and couldn't find one for sale right now, but you might check those websites in the future. Thesamba.com is a vw website with classifieds. Sometimes you'll see a battery powered vw there.

$1500 all in, or $1500 for the car, or $1500 for the conversion?

ze trouble viz EVs is, they get heavy quick... you can start with something light... but then it can't handle the weight of the batteries... older cars are often better, because they were often somewhat over-engineered as opposed to computer optimised structural components in a modern compact that are just big enough to handle design loads, and nothing more. VW bug bases might be okay if you're in the south, they're not so cheap further north. Also you can swap in combi suspension parts if you find it struggling with weight.

Rear wheel drives are the easiest conversions, so look out for small RWDs, the Chevette/Acadian comes to mind. S10 and S15 trucks are popular for EV conversion because they are one of the smallest newer vehicles that can carry a lot of battery weight, and have RWD and are relatively cheap and easy to find.

The motor sizing is a problem, especially for a cheap build, you can find lots of lower output motors cheap, but they are not going to be able to move a lot of batteries around. You might need to aim for minimal range with the batteries to be able to get a cheap EV going at all. I'd be inclined to have say 30 miles built into the vehicle, and then 1000lb of batteries and a Kubota diesel genny built into a trailer.

Batteries, there's real good ones and then there's cheap ones. I've heard that the favorable bang/buck/watthour numbers are with golf cart batteries, volume and ubiquity makes them cheap. They are not the lightest, but they are easily gettable.

It's really hard not to just blow off posts like this, they are just begging to be picked apart!
So how good are you at getting stuff for free, or really really cheap? can you get 8-20 golf car batteries for next to nothing? they are worth $9 each as scrap lead alone, and most golf car shops require a return on the cores or they tend to charge you an extra $15-20 on top of the $120 per battery they are already charging you.
Do you already have a motor? do you have something with a 20hp electric motor in it? (65mph, remember? BIG motor), can you get something like an electric forklift cheap? it will give you some of the contractors and save you a pile of cash!
Then you just need to find someone with a Mill to make an adapter plate for the motor for you, after all you are making parts fit together that were never designed to fit together.
you will also need to find the hardware to make battery boxes, large gauge wire, a speed controller, gauges, cable ends.
I say go with an E-bike, with a $1,500 budget you can make one that is pretty nice.

Yeah really a $5000 budget is more realistic...

However, if you collect up junk for 3 years, wind your own motor, built a heavy duty pulse plate desuplhator (for turning $20 scrap batteries into good ones) and get given the project vehicle free, then it's easy to bring it in under $1500

I have a newer electronic battery charger with one of these desulphator settings- the charger was just $50 (a Black and Decker 15 amp model). I haven't tried the desulfator function yet but can these really turn bad batteries back into good ones? I figured it was a gimmick or a "preventative maintenance" setting

Sometimes, if it hasn't done anything like welded the plates together inside or failed in another manner.

edit:Probably best on batteries that have been left sitting flat for a while and won't take a charge.

Your De-sulphaters should work, I would use it! I have a charger as well that has that function, and use it for batteries like the electric lawn mower, motorcycle batteries, and other batteries that normally have a short life, if the battery is really bad the charger doesn't even try, but if you put it on an older battery it will humm away with the de-sulphating light flashing away for an hour or two, the idea is that it sends a pulsating current thru that kind of vibrates the deposits off, of course if they are thick enough that they fall to the bottom and short out the battery, then they don't work, although some people claim that you can dump the acid out, replace it with water that has EDTA in it the EDTA will dissolve the build up and basically allow you to wash the inside of the battery out, then you just need new sulphuric acid, this can be a pain to do, ruin a pair of cloths and you have to buy the EDTA and new acid, and of course you then run the risk of the battery plats being damaged and you just wasted some time.

If you can budget $6,000 or more you might be able to find a car that is already converted, otherwise most conversions tend to cost $7,000 or more if you already have the car and use new parts.