A time for producing EV's

Alias,

I to would like to have an EV for commuting to and from work. I was curious about what you are planning to purchase. here are my needs for an EV, 50 MPH top speed, 60 mile range at an average speed of 35 MPH. What are your requirements?

Chas S.

Moderator Captain

Hi Chas, thanks for writing I appreciate it

So far, I have been looking into new Zapino's that are for sale. I am not sure where else to look
I would appreciate it also if you have any other places that you know of.
To be honest, I do a lot of freeway driving (from home, work & now school).
I'd love to own an EV and be able to use that as my transportation instead of using my Honda so much.
I suppose if I purchase a new ev with the type of range it would have, I could drive the side streets and have
about 1/2 of the freeway distance. My requirements I am hoping to have atleast 50 mph.
I have been looking at some of the scooters that are for sale and there is a scooter that does have top speed of
55 mph + and that one is the 150cc Lance Vintage Zapino.
What can I say ---> speed freak

Oh crap there is one problem that I may run into with this, at my work I am not sure if we have EV charging outlets
is there an alternative for this???? It's flippen ironic because I work for an auto-parts distributor (wharehouse)

You know what would be awesome, if I could purchase a Mini cooper and make it electric; that would be sweet

I think a Mini would be great too. I have done some deep research into conversions. Here are the high points of what I have found.

1. Find a vehicle which can carry the extra weight of the batteries. (The Chevy S-10 is the best recommendation)
2. Use a vehicle with a standard transmission
3. Don't try to use cheap components as they will just cause problems which will cost more in the long run.
4. Get the vehicle before you buy any other components
5. Try to find a conversion kit sized to give you the performance you want
6. Purchase all the components up front
7. Take the time to check all the wiring in the vehicle which is reused, Lights, door switches, dash lights, etc. Don't assume it is all good. A short with lots of battery power could have you rewiring the entire vehicle.
8. Take your time.

Chas S.

Moderator Captain

I couldn't help but like your Chevy S-10 conversion, in fact I love Chevy S-10 pickup's especially the early 80 years.
(just for kicks, I have also used a lot of chevy S-10's for patrol vehicles so I know them well).
Hahaha this would be a perfect conversion for a starting project; why????

I was just smiling over the fact that my shop (Dayton Automotive) still has a Running Chevy S-10 early 1990's pickup
and it even has a 1/2 cab. Early on the shop was using that to transport customers for service rides.
While under-going new management decided to purchase a newer more comfortable vehicle.
That truck was just not suited for the purpose for that shop and it wasn't something that we wanted to represent our
shop with. The point that I am getting at is, I think the shops plans on selling that truck because it's no longer
needed. I will ask and find out how much they want for it and see where I can go from there.
The mini cooper conversion is a great idea but you would be spending more money on just buying the vehicle alone
if you buy it new atleast. Mini coopers are atleast 20k New.

These are the type of trucks that if you have problems starting them and it's a fuel pump problem sometimes you can lightly bang on the fuel pump with a hammer and it starts (obviously you'd eventually would have to replace it)

chas_stevenson wrote

You know after doing some serious thinking just now about the S-10 conversion it would just be very interesting.
In fact It would probably be a less inexpensive conversion because the Chevy S-10's are usually worth about
$600 and up for just the truck alone (running or not).
If I had more money I would love to buy a mini cooper and convert that but, like I said before you would literally be spending $20,000 on a new vehicle nonetheless probably another $5,000+ on componets and converting it.
Though it would be a smaller conversion and probably easier than the S-10 probably less batteries???
This is something I could grasp and start working on with the S-10 in fact I will be getting in touch with our
service writer to see how much she wants to sell it for I have some extra income coming my way and WoW.
In fact it would be silly of me to purchase a brand new $1600 scooter if I have this S-10 that is possibly
available. Thanks Chas for the great idea

I've got a list of places to buy used EV's on 7gen.com but the two best are http://www.austinev.org/evtradinpost/ and http://www.evfinder.com/classifieds.htm .. And there are a couple EV's listed there in the bay area right now.

- David Herron, davidherron.com, 7gen.com, http://www.7gen.com/store
- EVT 4000, Charger bike (rebuilt), Vego 600sx (rebuilt), Electrified Electra Townie
- Lectra motorcycle

The sooner the juice gets too expensive to just burn it, the better!

Mr. Mik

If this is part of a closed thread but you want to comment please do so via my blog!

There is always a way if there is no other way!

Hi David, thanks for the weblinks. I especially checked out Evfinder.com
I am still interested in purchasing an EV (one day) and being able to use it as my transportation.
I apologize for not responding I just got home at 2200 hours because I started school this evening right after work.

I happen to be from the Netherlands and i have a car, the fuel price for regular fuel is now 1,55 euro per liter :S a galon is 3,8 liters ? so that would make 5.89 euro per gallon with the current dollar rate that would mean $8,54 getting close to three times your price ^^

btw of the 1,55 we pay per liter 1 euro+ is tax >.<

I can just hope they get fuelcell/electric cars on the market soon for a reasonable price with prestations that can match normal cars meaning: 0-60mph in +/- 12sec top speed of about 110mph and a radius of 300miles and able to fill it up again in about the same time it takes to fill your car with loads of money worth of fuel. BMW already made several 300bhp + engines running on hydrogen so the technology is here. Now someone needs to guts to bring it on the market and say fack you against the big oil concerns

Jesse wrote

Wow, ouch! I am not sure how ya'll handle that especially with folks who have low minimum wage jobs.

I'm a poor student and I think i sell my car soon, i drive a Suzuki swift GTI great fun driving it 0-60mph in 8,6sec top speed of around 130mph. But as a student in the Netherlands you get a card so you can use all public transportation(which gets you really every where in the country) for free but taking the car saves me around 15-30 mins but selling my car will save me at least 2500$ a year. So yes for a poor student like me its expensive to have a car >.< especially since every thing here is more expansive then it is in the USA i have been in the usa and i was wondered how cheap everything was ^^ just healthy food was quit expansive

its not like they use all vegetables for bio fuel, i stayed for 3 months in America doing some volunteer work in the national parks and on the off days we stayed in Flagstaff,Arizona or i went on road trip with some other international ppl. But when i wanted to cook something healthy with for example vegetables it would cost me like 3 times as much as its does in Europe, btw finding ingredients to cook at all was kinda weird in the beginning had to learn which super markets to go to, lucky im a lazy bastard and ordered pizza and fast food most of the time but a spanish girl in my apartment went crazy

its just kinda bad for ppl who eat a lot of corn products i guess, since corn is used a lot to make bio fuel. Btw where do they sell bio fuel i never saw a single drop of it and im sure thats its not even sold in Europe so how come i read all this articles about rain forest being cut down to produce bio fuel and corn prices that are rising. Where does all that bio fuel goes to !?

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" A time for producing EV's "
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- I'm lost for words.
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. . . . . . . . . . . . .
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Have any of you seen the documentary

" Who Killed The Electric Car ? " ?
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Have NOONE of you seen the documentary

" Who Killed The Electric Car ? " ?
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Do you realize the forces in play ?
...to discourage anything remotely resembling
a transformation of the road-vehicle fleet
away from the use of oil ?

Oil prices up ? - Well, then there's an
even stronger incentive to
do "whatever it takes"
to keep oil demand up.

How many billions of dollars are to be made EACH MONTH from
the "black gold" ( "The devils feces" as someone dubbed it )!

NOW is the time ?
The EV1 from the late 1990-s made 80 miles / charge
even on ancient lead-acid batteries
and pulled o - 60 mph in under 5 (five !) seconds
even on ancient lead-acid batteries.

-> But it used NO GASOLINE !

"GM never thought there would be such a demand for it"
"...and the car (EV1) was the proof that it could be done ! >>>>

>>> Now what did that say about all THEIR OTHER MODELS ?

* Kinda brain-warping, isn't it ?

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BIIIIG business ........ BIIIIG powers
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Let's not be naive, friends.
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Cheers!
"T"

P.S. STOP burning things to get power !!!!!!!!!!

But Minimum wage is probably something like the equivalent of $14 per hour isn't it? and unversities are pretty much free? Not $10,000-30,000 per year like in the US.

Yes, healthy food is very difficult to find in the US. And public transportation is almost nonexistent in many US cities. If you come over here again, ask where the nearest "Food Co-Op" is. Besides being operated as consumer and worker owned cooperatives they also have good organic often locally-grown produce.

Most cities also have a number of farmers markets in season, some eastern cities even have traditional central markets with local vegetable, cheese meat and fish vendors. but they don't advertize themselves like the supermarkets do.

I'm very familiar with the Chevette, Vega, Pinto, etc. I watched the transformation of "Made in Japan" meaning a cheap copy, slowly convert to meaning a car that was very reliable and lasted a very long time.

Earlier, because of the value of the Yen, they were cheaper than US economy cars. later, Toyotas, Hondas, etc were more expensive, but had gained a loyal following. US cars in the 1970's were of a notoriously poor quality due to rising costs.

Ethanol is made from corn right now, because corn is relatively cheap compared to other feed stocks. Most of the fuel-grade Ethanol is added to gasoline as a stretcher.

Concerning bio-diesel, one of the parts of the old diesel fuel that caused the worst part of its smog was the sulfur. Oddly, one of the characteristics of sulfur is that it was a very good lubricant for the fuel pumps that could run at up to 18,000 PSI.

Last year fuel refineries in the US had to convert over to the Europe/Asia low-sulfur fuel standard. By removing the sulfur, a lubricant had to be added. Bio-diesel is a very good lubricant, and is commonly added at a 5% concentration, and can be added as a stretcher up to 20% without needing to make any changes to the fuel system.

In concentrations over 20%, the seals should be changed to Viton rubber, or some similar substance, as high-biodiesel fuel will dissolve the old style rubber seals. I believe all of the recent new vehicles already have updated systems from the factory. Biodiesel is more expensive than regular diesel fuel.

Jesse wrote

I can understand that as a student you can get a public transportation card and it would be free
especially for those who don't work, which would be convienent. Hey, I just became a student again after twelve years
so it's kinda interesting However in my case I need my car
again and I am driving more. Sigh sixteen hour days are fun!!
I wish it was EV so I won't be spending so much on fuel, ugh. That would be awesome if I could charge an EV at both work and school,wonder if they even have charging facilities there?? hmmm but ya that would solve my problems for spending too much on fuel and bad for the economy hmmm.

No kidding even around here it's expensive even tofu blah.

I saw the documentary "who killed the electric car" its was pretty interesting especially the part where they took back all EV1's and crushed them to little packages while the car was a big success movie stars drove them and if they would go for sell they would sell probably thousands. I know someone who works at ford Europe and i talked with him about electric cars and such he told me car companies will never really want to make electric cars. On a simple $15 000 car a dealer makes like $1000 there are even models where the profit is $0 ! they earn their money with the repairs on the cars ! Now how many moving parts does a electric car has that can break down ? and how many parts need to be replaced once in a while like filters and oils ? so there is no gain in making electric cars for the manufacturers unless they make the cars like twice as expensive !

2nd thing is what do you think happens when we all of a sudden al start riding in EV's... oil consumption will drop to a point where its only used in industry. The world economy will crash countries go bankrupt and taxes will rise alot ! The whole world economy is based on oil and governments all over the world get most of their income of taxes on fuel.

My guess is car company and oil concerns wanna use oil as long as they can and when its really getting to expansive they will go for something ells like a fuel cell car which still uses a ignition engine ! Prices of hydrogen will rice as electricity will get rare (i don't say we cant make enough but why make more if you can earn more with making less )

Sorry Jesse but I totally disagree. I have to believe that the person you spoke to simply did not understand the very business that they are in....which is not uncommon in that industry!

First, many "new" parts are being added to autos today that have absolutely nothing to do with combustion engines. And they are very expensive parts...and will need routine replacement.

Next, hydrogen is so many years away if it were even feasible considering creating distribution systems, etc. We don't have that long even if...

Third, if one only uses basic common sense we know that electricity is the only feasible alternative that is present today. We already have distribution systems basically speaking. We have a "fuel" that is as "green" as we can expect now...even considering coal burning power plants (the figures have been extrapolated).

Fourth, we have little to no control of the price of gasoline TODAY and we do not have the next twenty years to study other alternatives. We have to begin, as we are seeing, to use what we know works. That is electric.

I compare what you write about this to, once again, what folks here in the USA were saying many years ago when the first gasoline crisis came about and Japan had the forethought to already start making small, affordable, gasoline burning cars. It didn't take many years, comparably, till those small cars showed up everywhere here in the USA. And, they literally changed a vast amount of the "thinking" at that time about exactly what people wanted in an automobile. Why? Because they made the ONLY reasonable difference at the time considering oil shortages, etc.

We are really at a turning point today. We don't have the next 30 years to "try" alternatives...to create complex infrastructures for delivery, etc. We have to begin now to move quickly away from oil. The only existing technology that is feasible right now is electric....period. We know how to do it...and I assure you before you see gasoline at $10 gallon in the USA you'll see at least half of all automobiles here become electric, or some hybrid with electric being the total drive source.

As I always like to say...I could be wrong...but I honestly don't think so!

Gushar

Dude, Have you not read my post on that "Who killed the electric car"
Do a search and I already posted the trailer video of it on the forum and it became a huge thread. Later ~

"what do I know???" lol

Not really. I think we'll be okay not sending ridiculous amounts of wealth around the world for our energy needs.

It's common for people to think that any change will result in economic turmoil. While it may take an adjustment period, the end result could most certainly be better.

I think the change would be good. Other manufacturers use this strategy to lower the sale price of a product and make money. Auto manufacturers change models so they take special parts. Try and source any body panel for your vehicle. They probably make a good portion of their money on insurance claims for replacing these.

Imagine an EV that could travel 40,000 miles without any maintenance, and marginal maintenance after that. No worrying about complicated parts that could break and require expensive maintenance. And imagine that your interstate highways had a wire buried underneath the roadway to inductively transfer energy that cost about $.1/kwhr or about $.03/mile. You could travel 1,000 miles for about $30 and some wear on the tires. This gives you an idea of the benefit of efficient use of energy for electric vehicles. Now you are wasting 80% of the energy instantly from gasoline in heat. Even though electricity is more expensive for the amount of energy defined as heat energy (at $.1/kwhr) you are wasting most of it instantly in an ICE.

But if your not spending all this wealth for wasting energy than the economies going to crash! Yea right, instead it will be doing much better.

KZ750 Motorcycle Conversion
900 watt scooter
Pic from http://www.electricmotorbike.org/