Electric Car Conversions - Expanded.
Now that the price of oil is unreasonably high, people are starting to really look into alternative fuels, myself included. Alternative methods of electricity generation such as wind, solar, tidal and wave energy are all well and good and can do a great job generating electricity for fixed resources. But what about a good mobile source of power? Something that would be able to replace gasoline or diesel fuel in cars and trucks? What kind of fuel would be good for that? Bio Diesel, ethanol, natural gas, propane or other organic fuels? All of these have to be burned to release their energy, plus they all have various toxic emissions of their own. Now, with all the concern over global warming and pollution issues they just don’t stack up. Not to mention we don’t have enough fertile land to keep up with growing demand for food, let alone adding a fuel source to the already strained farming industry. So what is the answer? Well I don’t claim electricity is the end all be all, however it is a solution and a rather decent one at that.
Lets look at the basic operation of an electric car. It has an electric drive, a controller and batteries (these are the macro component groups). Electric motors are very simple devices consisting of a drive shaft, electro magnets and the housing (again over simplified, but it makes the point). Compare that to an IC (internal combustion) engine which has so many parts that it wouldn’t make sense to list them all here. What am I getting at? Well, if you have heard of the KISS (keep it simple, stupid) principle, this falls right in line. What does that mean for the user? Frankly, less maintenance and less chance of issues. Now don’t get me wrong a car is still a car and there are many other working parts that can break down, but in the end, simpler is better.
Now what kind of emissions does an electric car have? Locally, none. What the heck do you mean locally none? Well, when an electric car is using the stored energy from its batteries, there is nothing in terms of emissions generated. The motor is using the stored energy to make it turn. However that electricity has to be generated somehow and our current generation technologies have emissions, IE coal fired plants, nuclear plants and nat gas peaking plants. So in an ideal world we would use renewable energy such as wind and solar to charge our electric cars and there were be no emissions whatsoever.
What other benefits would we achieve from Electric Car Conversions? well, cars would be virtually silent when stopped, and the only sound when in motion would be tire noise, wind noise and miscellaneous others like brake and steering noises. Wouldn’t that be nice? Sitting there in traffic (well the annoying part of sitting in traffic aside…) and not having to listen to other cars rumbling next to you? I think that would be a great benefit! Cutting down tremendously on noise pollution.
Now what are some of the main drawbacks to Electric Car Conversions? The one forefront in the minds of most people is limited range. It is terrible to think that you only have X number of miles you can travel in a day. Thats a strong argument, how do you respond to that? Well for most people the range of an electric car will be more than sufficient to cover all your daily driving. How many miles do you drive during a normal given day? According to the BTS (Bureau of Transportation Statistics) that number for the average American is going to be less than 40. If you have an electric car that is capable of 120 to 140 miles per charge, that would be more than sufficient. It would also allow you to do a whole lot more than that. The issues come when you start talking about long trips. At the moment they are a problem. At least with current chemical based batteries that take time to recharge. Hydrogen fuel cells are also batteries, however they are batteries that are refillable just like your gas tank is now. I won’t delve into fuel cells in this article, but know that they are available now and are having a lot of research done to improve their technology and safety. Other drawbacks… You will hear people say, electric cars are great if you don’t want heat or AC. That I believe, is a common misconception. It was true back in the day, but if I am not mistaken, you can run heaters and AC units off electricity. It will however decrease your miles per charge, but if you aren’t driving to the full range of the car, this probably won’t be a problem.
All of that being said, in terms of our automotive future I believe electric is the only way to go. What can you do right now? Well at the moment Electric Car Conversions are a good way to go. Since the automotive industry will be a while in bringing these cars to market, there are a whole wide range of cars out there that can be converted. In the near future I hope to convert my 03 Mitsubishi Lancer into an EV as my first project in this field. In doing so, I hope to generate some buzz in my local area for EV’s.
An interesting blog article
Today searching around the web I found this great blog post I thought might be worth taking a look at.
- riverpointevillageapts.com » Coming Soon: Electric Cars For Sale - The question is will it last? Have we finally reached a crisis point in a time when the world’s automobile manufacturers realize we need an alternative to gas powered vehicles? That the only way to avoid the fate of the dinosaur is to drive better gas mileage into their cars and trucks while continuing research on other alternatives? Consumers are buying electric car kits, spending money on electric car conversions, and trying to find out exactly what electric cars are and how they work. Most people realize we have gone down this road before and they are not willing to get caught behind the eight ball again. Problem is no one tells the car makers.
Are you interested in Electric Car Conversions?
This question goes out to anyone who has an argument either for Electric car Conversions or against Electric Car Conversions. Would you purchase an Electric Vehicle? Taking into account the current limitations that such vehicles have?
I would love to hear both sides of this argument, because I know there ARE two sides and BOTH are quite passionate!
If you would like to answer this question and join in the discussion please click here. Or go to electriccarconversions.ning.com and click the forums tab.
Announcing Electric Car Conversions Social networking forums!
As part of my Electric Car Conversions project / business venture, I needed a place to hold discussions as well as an easy place to post more content. Well, it is now in place! I have created the electriccarconversions social networking group site. On this new site you are able to sign up, post content, interact with others interested in Electric Car Conversions, as well as view my own conversions progress (as slow as it may be..). You will be able to do that through video’s and blog articles I post there.
Anyhow, hope to hear from you on the new site! Just in case, I will post the link here again as well.
Dan
Starting an Electric car conversion company.
My ultimate goal with this Electric Car Conversion project is to develop it into a business for myself. I believe initially the conversion business would be something to start on the side. Keep the day job, convert cars to electric on the side. Then should demand increase I would be able to do this full time and create a small business for myself and others. Once the company has started, there are many directions it could go. You could stick with conversions of older cars, or start developing an electric exotic car such as Tesla Motors has done or convert current hybrid vehicles into their plug-in variants etc etc. At this point I do have a vision for the company’s future, but it needs to start small… as I have a little girl on the way within the next month (yay! We are very excited about it) and that is going to take a lot of time!
That being said, how does one go about this project? Do you first find a customer who is willing to get a deal on a conversion? For instance would you offer them a converted car for just the cost of the parts only? How do you convince them you are capable of doing a conversion in the first place? How much is it initially going to cost, etc..? Or should you even go that route? Maybe I should do a conversion of my own and create a prototype from with to show we can do it, and that it can be done. Although we know many people have done this, so the question of “can it be done” is moot. From my initial research the general consensus is a conversion can be done for approximately $12,000.00. Now from what I understand that is the cost of the parts only. No time is figured into that calculation.
I have also posted this up on my Ning network page. It has a forums section for discussion on Electric Car Conversions. You can get that page by clicking this link here.
Basic Steps to Electric Car Conversions.
At the current moment, I am interested in completing my own Electric Car Conversion. This being my first post on this topic I am by no means an expert at this point. I hope to be in the future, but at this point please bear with me! What I hope to do here is outline the basic steps in the Electric Car Conversion process. These processes are what I have been able to come up with through the limited research I have done as well as the logical flow of a process like this.
The initial steps I have outlined for this project are as follows:
Step 1 - Research. (Lots and lots of it. This is the current stage I am in and unfortunately it seems to look more and more difficult the more I learn about it! However I am not giving up!)
Step 2 - Conversion car selection.
Step 3 – Removal of the ICE (Internal Combustion Engine) components – ie, engine, exhaust, fuel tank etc as these parts are not needed and take up valuable battery real-estate.
Step 4 – Electric drive / battery selection.
Step 5 – Electric drive installation and battery installation.
Step 6 – Testing, trying to find the best amp / watt ratio to get the best performance from the engine.
Step 7 – Fine tuning / cosmetic issues.
Step 8 – Drive!
I hope to follow these steps to my very own Electric Car. Along the way I am sure I will come across many problems and difficulties and I hope to be able to tackle each of them… However only time will tell!
Thanks for reading! If anyone has any suggestions or resources that might be helpful please post below or send me an email
Here is a great basic research book:
Why Electric Car Conversions?
Some of you might ask the question “why would anyone want to do Electric Car Conversions?” and that is a very good question. To start off I have to ask you a question. How many miles do you drive during a normal given day? According to the BTS (Bureau of Transportation Statistics) that number for the average American is going to be less than 40. That being said, if you do in-fact travel less than 40 miles per day, an electric car may be the perfect commuter tool for you. First off, electric cars are very very simple in their mechanics, encompassing an electric drive motor, batteries and a drive controller (there is a little more involved than that, however that is outside the scope of this post). First off, wouldn’t it be nice if we didn’t have to change our oil every 3K miles? Well, electric cars require virtually no maintenance. There can be a little involved depending upon the type of batteries you use, however that can be as simple as adding water once a month. Isn’t that great?! No more maintenance! There’s more, electric cars have no localized emissions. What do I mean by localized emissions? That can be summed up by saying some forms of generating electricity generate emissions, such as coal fired and nuclear base load power plants. However they are much easier to control / regulate than all the current mobile power plants we have in our ICE (Internal Combustion Engine) automobiles. Lastly, wouldn’t it be nice to sit in traffic with the windows down and not hear all that engine noise? Electric cars are virtually silent. When you are not moving, the motor is not turning. Unlike IC engines that are always generating power, even when you are not moving. Think about it, you are sitting in traffic as mentioned above, looking around at all the cars and you don’t hear engines or smell exhaust… How great would that be! So despite limited drawbacks, electric cars are a great way to get around locally, which for most of us will cover about 95% of our driving.
So ask yourself this: Why NOT do Electric Car Conversions? Driving around in an electric car sounds pretty cool to me!