# Interested in converting a car to Electric



## ElectriCar (Jun 15, 2008)

You're going to spend a ton of money to get that range, probably $10k or better for the batteries and another 7G or so for everything else. And you're going to have to read a ton on here. Best of luck.


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## sailfish11 (Sep 15, 2007)

Welcome to the forum!

It can be done. If you go to the garage (link in the upper right corner of this screen), you can filter the results by range. There are a half-dozen or so getting >90 mile ranges at highway speed. Dozens more get that kind of range in city driving.

ElectriCar is right though, you will most likely need to use lithium batteries (not necessarily though -- some of the high-range cars in the garage are lead). The good news is prices for lithium are coming down -- and you may qualify for a 10% tax credit under the new stimulus bill (although the IRS still has to publish their interpretation of what qualifies for that).


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## ElectriCar (Jun 15, 2008)

sailfish11 said:


> Welcome to the forum!
> 
> It can be done. If you go to the garage (link in the upper right corner of this screen), you can filter the results by range. There are a half-dozen or so getting >90 mile ranges at highway speed. Dozens more get that kind of range in city driving.
> 
> ElectriCar is right though, you will most likely need to use lithium batteries (not necessarily though -- some of the high-range cars in the garage are lead). The good news is prices for lithium are coming down -- and you may qualify for a 10% tax credit under the new stimulus bill (although the IRS still has to publish their interpretation of what qualifies for that).


We really should start a tax implications thread somewhere. This would be good and I'm sure a tax lawyer is available to some of us as well as CPA's


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## Technologic (Jul 20, 2008)

ElectriCar said:


> You're going to spend a ton of money to get that range, probably $10k or better for the batteries and another 7G or so for everything else. And you're going to have to read a ton on here. Best of luck.



There's always the ground up option doing a super light weight, low Cd design 

I think tops he'd only need about 7k for the batteries if he converted your standard sedan.


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## ThumperCR (Feb 22, 2009)

Ok so I can see I'm going to need alot of batteries. I see the Lithium is probably going to be the best bet since they are much lighter than the others and are pretty powerful. Any car recommendations (remember I prefer american made over foreign)?  Also would you guys recommend the ADC Fb1-4001A Electric motor or the Netgain Warp 9 more? Also how many batteries would I need (Lithium) to get 100+ miles between charges? Thanks guys.


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## Guest (Feb 23, 2009)

I like your desire for wanting to build an electric but it seems like your needs outweigh the practicality of electric. It can be done if you don't mind paying for another home. : )

It will be very expensive to get your range and speed you desire. We can help if you have the funds. I won't be done on the cheap. You may be a better candidate for hybrid or diesel. Electric will not fulfill the needs of everyone. You may be one of those. 

If you are going to go for it then I'd find a car in excellent condition and reasonable weight. A newer vehicle would be great. Maybe a VW Passat or Beetle, or Jetta. Since you will most likely be using lithium and more than likely AC you can use just about any thing that suits your fancy. Be sure it is comfortable and dry. It will be with you for a long time. Be sure it is a vehicle that has a history of excellent parts inventory so you can get parts in the years to come. 

Pete : )

Here is an excellent one to have a look at: This one is AC: http://www.cameronsoftware.com/ev/Welcome.html

Here is another: This one is DC:
http://www.ohler.com/ev/spyder/


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## Technologic (Jul 20, 2008)

gottdi said:


> I like your desire for wanting to build an electric but it seems like your needs outweigh the practicality of electric. It can be done if you don't mind paying for another home. : )
> 
> It will be very expensive to get your range and speed you desire. We can help if you have the funds. I won't be done on the cheap. You may be a better candidate for hybrid or diesel. Electric will not fulfill the needs of everyone. You may be one of those.


That depends entirely if he's willing to go ground up and ultralight doesn't it?

if he builds frame/fiberglass body etc, with ultra low drag it won't require much more than a honda civic (tops) to make.

If he converts a regular sedan... he'll need 16KWhr to 20KWhr for his range


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## ga2500ev (Apr 20, 2008)

ThumperCR said:


> Ok so I can see I'm going to need alot of batteries. I see the Lithium is probably going to be the best bet since they are much lighter than the others and are pretty powerful. Any car recommendations (remember I prefer american made over foreign)? Also would you guys recommend the ADC Fb1-4001A Electric motor or the Netgain Warp 9 more? Also how many batteries would I need (Lithium) to get 100+ miles between charges? Thanks guys.


Is the range a want or a need. A need would be "I live 50 miles from work and there are no recharge stations where I work." Anything short of that is a want.

Range is not rocket science. To get range to need to factor in all of the following:

1) Make the vehicle as light as possible. If you are thinking American then think Ford Aspire or something along those lines.

2) Work on aerodynamic properties. Rear wheel covers. Front air dam. Kamelback rear. smoothing the underbelly. cutting air resistance in the front. Go hang out at ecomodder.com to get some ideas.

3) Go slow! If you can go 45 Mph, then all the better. The faster you go, the more you cut into your range.

4) More powerful batteries at a higher voltage. Looking at LiFePo most likely.

5) Rolling resistance. Get low RR tires and pump them up past comfort level.

You need to think through your motivation and all those issues before tackling this project. The best way to think about electric vehicles right now is a vehicle with a 2 gallon tank that takes 8 hours to fill. So you will have to squeeze every ounce of efficiency from the energy you have available.

Hope this gives you some insight.

ga2500ev


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## ThumperCR (Feb 22, 2009)

Yeah I think I'm messing with a major underdeveloped technology here that is wasting my time. I just can't believe that you have to spend close to $5000 to $7000 just in batteries to get around 80-100 miles in an electric car. That is insane. Now I can see why we are still dependent on oil. I know they say that the average travel for americans is only 30 miles, but I would like to see where they got that data from cause everyone I know it's more around 100+ per day. There has to be some kind of bottlekneck that hasn't been broke through yet to get more range out of electric cars and until that happens, I don't see the big automakers jumping in to build them. I wouldn't want to make a 30-50 mile electric car either, that's an embarrasement. Anyways have fun with your extremely "unefficient" electric cars. I'll stick with gas.


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## Qer (May 7, 2008)

ThumperCR said:


> Yeah I think I'm messing with a major underdeveloped technology here that is wasting my time.





ThumperCR said:


> I'll stick with gas.


Anyone more than me that finds it highly amusing that he blames EV's to be underdeveloped while sticking to a technology that has an efficiency that is less than 20%...?


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## ThumperCR (Feb 22, 2009)

Qer said:


> Anyone more than me that finds it highly amusing that he blames EV's to be underdeveloped while sticking to a technology that has an efficiency that is less than 20%...?


I guess you and me judge "efficiency" on different terms. I can go to the gas station and pump 10 gallons of gas which takes about 5 to 7 minutes. Then I can drive nearly 300 miles on that tank without refilling. Electric your telling me that I have to charge 45 batteries for 4 to 6 hours (at least) to jump in and drive 30 to 40 miles. That is not efficient.


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## Technologic (Jul 20, 2008)

ThumperCR said:


> I guess you and me judge "efficiency" on different terms. I can go to the gas station and pump 10 gallons of gas which takes about 5 to 7 minutes. Then I can drive nearly 300 miles on that tank without refilling. Electric your telling me that I have to charge 45 batteries for 4 to 6 hours (at least) to jump in and drive 30 to 40 miles. That is not efficient.


No neither of those scenarios are efficient... batteries are just MORE energy efficient than gasoline.

A single gallon of gas has the potential energy around 36,000 Whr of electricity.

What I was suggesting to you is your average 2000lb sedan will need about 16kwhr -20kwhr to go that distance of 100miles or so...

Which is about equitable to getting 200mpg of gasoline. 
Now if you want to go further... you need to design a better car... since both steel and current car body styles are extremely inefficient.

Likewise, you filling up your car with roughly 360,000 Whrs of "potential energy" should make you feel really wasteful for only going roughly 300miles off of it (and that's 30mpg no less). That much battery capacity would get your average custom designed EV to go about 5000 miles.

www.aptera.com

That battery pack they use goes 120miles and only costs about $3000 (and would last about 200,000 miles driven before any parts need replaced).

So now, you're left with a simpler technology, no oil changes, no maintenance, no air intakes exploding, no transmission failures (it doesn't have a transmission), and the car's value can be completely refurbished by putting a relatively cheap battery in it every 200k-300k miles ... Likewise you will never have "surprise repair bills" for the most part. No engine rebuilds... failures of any kind are extremely minimal in electric situations.

Good luck with your ICE... the tech is there... your heart just isn't . Note that over the life of a lifepo pack (about 200,000 miles for a 100 mile range), you would have spent 22,000USD on gasoline at current prices... double that once gas goes back up (or roughly 3 times the battery's inital cost). If you count the average maintenance incurred over even 100k miles from your average sedan... you can at least double that figure on average.

Now if you designed a decently efficient EV that say got 80Whr/mile... the difference would be even starker. At that rate the pack would cost $3000 or so dollars, last about 250,000 miles... or roughly 1/8th the cost of ONLY the gasoline your ICE uses (let alone blown head gaskets, automatic transmission replacements, etc)... of course once gas goes back up to $4/gallon in the next year... forget about the comparison. You could buy 4 apteras for the price your car costs to run.... or 16 10kwhr lithium battery packs...


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## ElectriCar (Jun 15, 2008)

ThumperCR said:


> Yeah I think I'm messing with a major underdeveloped technology here that is wasting my time. I just can't believe that you have to spend close to $5000 to $7000 just in batteries to get around 80-100 miles in an electric car. That is insane. Now I can see why we are still dependent on oil. I know they say that the average travel for americans is only 30 miles, but I would like to see where they got that data from cause everyone I know it's more around 100+ per day. There has to be some kind of bottlekneck that hasn't been broke through yet to get more range out of electric cars and until that happens, I don't see the big automakers jumping in to build them. I wouldn't want to make a 30-50 mile electric car either, that's an embarrasement. Anyways have fun with your extremely "unefficient" electric cars. I'll stick with gas.


I hear ya. You just keep on buying your gas from people who want to kill you and the people you love. I won't unless I have to. I run biodiesel, made down the road for my diesel truck as much as I can. 

I live not quite 7 miles from my office so I need 15 miles range. My wife needs about 8, my daughter needs 20 and son needs 6. We live in a city of a 150,000 people or so. 

Living near civilization is very convenient. Food, fast and frozen is only a charge away as is Wal-Mart and most anything we need.

If that's not your case then you might move or find a different job while gas prices are down. After all, when gas hits $6-8 a gallon you may have to do either or both! You can get prepared like most of us have done or you can say *"[email protected]$# it!"* and live with the consequences. 

You mentioned underdeveloped technology. No, the technology is here but it's relatively new at this point and thus not very affordable. And while it may be insane to you to pay 8-10G for a battery pack it won't be insane when it takes you 50-60 a day for gas. A 20 mile per gallon car, driving 100 miles a day at $6 a gallon is $650 per month not including any driving on the weekends or maintenance costs. 

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that a $10,000 battery to get you back and forth to work is a good investment should you decide you're not going to move or change jobs. One year of your driving plus the weekend and a little maintenance will pay for the battery. In another year or so you could buy you a new bass boat or such!


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## ElectriCar (Jun 15, 2008)

ThumperCR said:


> I guess you and me judge "efficiency" on different terms. I can go to the gas station and pump 10 gallons of gas which takes about 5 to 7 minutes. Then I can drive nearly 300 miles on that tank without refilling. Electric your telling me that I have to charge 45 batteries for 4 to 6 hours (at least) to jump in and drive 30 to 40 miles. That is not efficient.


Not with a 240V charger like mine. Maybe 3-4 hours.


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## Technologic (Jul 20, 2008)

ElectriCar said:


> It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that a $10,000 battery to get you back and forth to work is a good investment should you decide you're not going to move or change jobs. One year of your driving plus the weekend and a little maintenance will pay for the battery. In another year or so you could buy you a new bass boat or such!


Lol I think investing that money in the shell of the car and getting a $3000 battery is a better investment 

Easily done


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## ElectriCar (Jun 15, 2008)

Technologic said:


> Lol I think investing that money in the shell of the car and getting a $3000 battery is a better investment
> 
> Easily done


Curious how it will play out getting it approved for highway use etc. I assume you've already looked at that. I thought about that but I'm not convinced I'd want to put myself in harms way depending on my "car building skills" to keep me safe.


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## Technologic (Jul 20, 2008)

ElectriCar said:


> Curious how it will play out getting it approved for highway use etc. I assume you've already looked at that. I thought about that but I'm not convinced I'd want to put myself in harms way depending on my "car building skills" to keep me safe.


I would put myself in harms way on my own engineering abilities... but I doubt most people understand how to protect oneself properly.

It's not difficult getting a 3wheeler registered (takes like a $40 inspection). If you do a 4 wheel car you need to go under custom car laws, which require a $100 inspection of the safety components (at least in this state).

Since I plan to go 3 wheels I'll be fine in both areas. Also it should be noted that my plans SHOULD be a few dozen times stronger than your average sedan on front and side collison (thanks to the wonderful engineering properties that dictate Young's modulus x thickness works on an exponential scale increasing strength )

So a light weight, decently high young's modulus foam (say a 0.15g/cc foam that is 1GPA in young's modulus) per gram in your door will effectively be 16-20 times stiffer than steel.

1GPA x 10mm thick (equals 1GPA times 10^3 in impact strength) vs 1 mm thick steel (110GPA)... yet 10 mm of it will still weigh 100 times less than that 1mm of steel (obviously this isn't exactly a raw truth though... because of metallic deformation)

You should check out www.alulight.com (aluminum foams) to see just how freaking stiff metallic foams can be as well.

Also it should be noted that just straight fiberglass resined is about 80GPA... yet weighs 1/8th or so what steel does. 

Of course there are better materials than what I plan to use, but unrealistic for a person's garage... more industrial settings (such a elastomers that have fiberglass suspended in them... in sheet form upwards of 100 times stiffer than steel per gram)


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## ElectriCar (Jun 15, 2008)

I assume the author of this thread is gone now so we're not exactly hi-jacking his thread now. 

You are aware that being TOO STIFF could result in you getting launched like a baseball off a bat if you're hit broadside from which the resulting impact could give you a concussion you likely wouldn't recover from. I remember from selling cars I think the uni body construction is designed to crumple and absorb impact to minimize traumatic impact to the body under all but the worst impacts.


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## Technologic (Jul 20, 2008)

ElectriCar said:


> I assume the author of this thread is gone now so we're not exactly hi-jacking his thread now.
> 
> You are aware that being TOO STIFF could result in you getting launched like a baseball off a bat if you're hit broadside from which the resulting impact could give you a concussion you likely wouldn't recover from. I remember from selling cars I think the uni body construction is designed to crumple and absorb impact to minimize traumatic impact to the body under all but the worst impacts.


Well the good part about foams and fiberglass is that's not how it works... the matter during a crash effectively liquefies on a molecular scale leading to compression and uniform pressure across the entire structure.

There's lots of reasons stiffer is better in a general sense... but even more reasons that closed cell foams are better (ie. they absorb energy on a microscopic scale omnidirectionally vs steel which absorbs through plastic deformation).

I believe by layering fiberglass, pouring dense foam, then another fiberglass layer would absorb impacts quite well. (ie. each foam layer will crack and attempt to expand back but the fiberglass structure will only deform plastically ie.... like a kevlar bulletproof vest).

of course precautions must be taken to avoid sudden impacts to the brain (ie. airbags will still help quite a bit). As far as side impacts though, what kills people is the compressive trauma from the actual force into their door... something this will remedy quite well.

If you think about mirroring a bullet proof vest in the form of body panel layerings with foam/fiberglass you get a sense of what I'm shooting for.... in that setting the energy from the impact will almost entirely fall short inside the body itself... unless it's incredibly severe.

Also the lighter the body the less force in general will be directly transfered and need absorbed... for instance it's much more likely that you will simply "deflect" off a larger body (ie. the car will just spin around) than ram into it impacting the entire force head on...

Obviously testing such things is very difficult... but the chances are incredibly good my design will achieve better results in 500lbs than your average sedan has till about the year 2001 (pretty easily).

Foams get rid of forces extremely efficiently... the only thing that's better is ceramic fracturing.


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## speculawyer (Feb 10, 2009)

ThumperCR said:


> Yeah I think I'm messing with a major underdeveloped technology here that is wasting my time. I just can't believe that you have to spend close to $5000 to $7000 just in batteries to get around 80-100 miles in an electric car. That is insane. Now I can see why we are still dependent on oil. I know they say that the average travel for americans is only 30 miles, but I would like to see where they got that data from cause everyone I know it's more around 100+ per day. There has to be some kind of bottlekneck that hasn't been broke through yet to get more range out of electric cars and until that happens, I don't see the big automakers jumping in to build them. I wouldn't want to make a 30-50 mile electric car either, that's an embarrasement. Anyways have fun with your extremely "unefficient" electric cars. I'll stick with gas.


A few things:
1) Extended-Range EVs like the Chevy Volt may be game changers. They'll have the cheap cost of electric transport (for the first 40 miles) and the range & fill-up speed of gas vehicles. Perhaps the Chevy Volt is what you need.
2) Pure EVs are do-able if you are willing to accept a small and light vehicle. See the Aptera http://www.aptera.com/
3) Although they are low right now, gas prices will go back up again. And when they do, you'll be back. 
4) Don't you dare call electric cars "unefficient" . . . electric cars are FAR more efficient than gas cars . . . they have motors with 90% efficiency compared to 30% for gas engines. Perhaps you meant expensive or impractical.


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## ElectriCar (Jun 15, 2008)

speculawyer said:


> A few things:
> 1) Extended-Range EVs like the Chevy Volt may be game changers. They'll have the cheap cost of electric transport (for the first 40 miles) and the range & fill-up speed of gas vehicles. Perhaps the Chevy Volt is what you need.
> 2) Pure EVs are do-able if you are willing to accept a small and light vehicle. See the Aptera http://www.aptera.com/
> 3) Although they are low right now, gas prices will go back up again. And when they do, you'll be back.
> 4) Don't you dare call electric cars "unefficient" . . . electric cars are FAR more efficient than gas cars . . . they have motors with 90% efficiency compared to 30% for gas engines. Perhaps you meant expensive or impractical.


Well said!


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## ThumperCR (Feb 22, 2009)

I'm not gone. You can't get arid of me that easy. All I'm saying is to impliment an electric car in my household (IE I live 30 miles from work, 60 miles round trip and we car pool so I have to pick people up before I leave town) so to be pratical the car has to get at least 100 miles at highway speed to work for me. Anything less just isn't going to cut it. I read an article as I was sitting with my wife at a hospital about a 100% car that can go 250 miles on its Lithium rechargeable battery and it is 100% electric, not hybrid. If it can, why Can't I build one for a reasonable price that can do the same thing? The car I'm refering to is the Tesla Roadster.


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## rfengineers (Jun 2, 2008)

ThumperCR said:


> I'm not gone. You can't get arid of me that easy. All I'm saying is to impliment an electric car in my household (IE I live 30 miles from work, 60 miles round trip and we car pool so I have to pick people up before I leave town) so to be pratical the car has to get at least 100 miles at highway speed to work for me. Anything less just isn't going to cut it. I read an article as I was sitting with my wife at a hospital about a 100% car that can go 250 miles on its Lithium rechargeable battery and it is 100% electric, not hybrid. If it can, why Can't I build one for a reasonable price that can do the same thing? The car I'm refering to is the Tesla Roadster.


The Tesla Roadster sells for more than $100,000. If you want to convert a car yourself using the same motor/batteries/etc used in the Tesla you will still be spending $60,000 or so for the parts.
The biggest expense is still the batteries. Recent downward pressure on the price of 'tesla-like' batteries may make these types of conversions more achievable. Stay-tuned.


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## ElectriCar (Jun 15, 2008)

If you're 30 miles out, maybe you could have them allow you to charge while at work. They probably pay only 5-6c/kw so if you get 500w/mile and drive 50 miles, you're looking at 25kw to recharge all day. That will cost them $1.25/day. You could offer to pay them $30-40/month or so and that should make you both happy. 

However for high mileage driving like I do, you need a 30A 208 or 240V outlet. Any electrician could make an adapter cable for you if they have a welding outlet or such, maybe at the shop. That way you can get more use out of it. 

Today for example I drove just over 60 miles. If I only had a 120V charger I'd never achieve that and the price of the charger isn't much more.

Were all wishing you the best of course but you just have to justify it for yourself. Sure it's a chunk of change but I've driven 900 miles so far for a total of $27, and that's with "cheap" fuel.


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## Technologic (Jul 20, 2008)

ThumperCR said:


> If it can, why Can't I build one for a reasonable price that can do the same thing? The car I'm refering to is the Tesla Roadster.


How reasonable...

$10,000? you def could (and my soft budget is $8000 for my custom 3 wheel 4 seater that hopefully will do 200 miles-400miles off 10kwhr).

It just depends how much work you want to do and how skilled you are with fabrication.

Or you can just wait a year or more till I start mold popping extra kits of mine


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## ThumperCR (Feb 22, 2009)

Hey guys. I just received my quote for the TS_LFP160A's from Elite Power Solutions. Wow, let me clean my underroos out. . I think I'll be waiting a bit for the price to go down, alot.


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## ElectriCar (Jun 15, 2008)

Technologic has found them for 35cents per watt hour. What was your quote?


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## ThumperCR (Feb 22, 2009)

My quote through Elite Power Solutions LLC was normal price &2/ah cells, but they offer a volume discount price of 1.65/ah so total cost of 45pc of 160ah batteries is 160*45*1.65=$11880. Yeah $11,880 . Now If I can get that in half or less, then maybe.


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## ElectriCar (Jun 15, 2008)

ThumperCR said:


> My quote through Elite Power Solutions LLC was normal price &2/ah cells, but they offer a volume discount price of 1.65/ah so total cost of 45pc of 160ah batteries is 160*45*1.65=$11880. Yeah $11,880 . Now If I can get that in half or less, then maybe.


Watt hours are the ah times the cell voltage. Thus 160*3.2=512wh per battery. 

So ($1.65*160)/512=264/512=.5156 or $.52/wh. 

Technologic's quote was $.35/wh or $8,078 for the same as your pack. Save you 33%. Not bad at all and that's a nice size pack as well!


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## Big-Foot (Jun 8, 2008)

ThumperCR said:


> I'm not gone. You can't get arid of me that easy. All I'm saying is to impliment an electric car in my household (IE I live 30 miles from work, 60 miles round trip and we car pool so I have to pick people up before I leave town) so to be pratical the car has to get at least 100 miles at highway speed to work for me. Anything less just isn't going to cut it..


Hi,
Okay - I read now that you car pool ((GOOD FOR YOU!!!)) Thumbs up! 
And when you say "pick people up" - I would guess that you pick up at least two.



ThumperCR said:


> I read an article as I was sitting with my wife at a hospital about a 100% car that can go 250 miles on its Lithium rechargeable battery and it is 100% electric, not hybrid. If it can, why Can't I build one for a reasonable price that can do the same thing? The car I'm refering to is the Tesla Roadster.


First off - good luck in Car Pooling with a Tesla. It is a 2-seater. 

So what we have here so far for requirements are;
* Must be 100% Electric
* Must have 100 mile range at Highway speeds
* Must seat at least 3 people (I think this pretty well rules out a 3-wheeler)
* Must have a cargo capacity of 450# (figuring 150# per person x 3)
* I'll note here that you weren't happy with the time to re-charge - that might change driven by cost of vehicle.
* Must be at a reasonable cost (see below)

What is the "reasonable" figure that you're shooting for?
Is overnight re-charging an issue?
How good are your mechanical skills?
How good are your fabrication skills?
Do you have your own fabrication equipment (Welder, Saws, Grinders, etc.) ?
How well do you understand the principles of electricity?
Do you have a place and time to take on such a project?

All of these questions and more will play into what the final cost of your project will be and whether or not it fits into your parameters of "reasonable"..


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## Technologic (Jul 20, 2008)

ElectriCar said:


> Watt hours are the ah times the cell voltage. Thus 160*3.2=512wh per battery.
> 
> So ($1.65*160)/512=264/512=.5156 or $.52/wh.
> 
> Technologic's quote was $.35/wh or $8,078 for the same as your pack. Save you 33%. Not bad at all and that's a nice size pack as well!


20kwh is a gigantic pack


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## ThumperCR (Feb 22, 2009)

Ok your right a 3 wheeler won't work. There is actually 4 of us that all carpool together so 150 (average)*4=600 pounds of "people" I guess we can go with that. I would like to keep it under $5,000 if all possible. I'm pretty good with cars, no mechanic by any means but I know my way around a car and know how to fix certain things on them. My dad is a really good welder and fabricator, he also has grinders, of metal components so battery rack and motor to tranny connector wouldn't be any problem for him. Time isn't an issue, it's not like I have to have this thing going in a week. I don't care if it takes a year and I have a garage to do it in so no concern there. Overnight charging is no issue in my garage. At work would be a challenge since I work at a factory with 2000+ employees so getting a parking spot near the building is almost impossible so even if I worked out a deal with them to charge it, I would probably have to have at least 200 to 400 ft of extension cord to plug it in depending on where I get a spot to park. 

Now on the batteries, obviously the Lithium would be nice, but out of my price range. What would be an alternative choice of batteries with range being the top priority? Would you guys recommend the FB1-4001A or the Warp 9 motor?


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## ElectriCar (Jun 15, 2008)

ThumperCR said:


> Ok your right a 3 wheeler won't work. There is actually 4 of us that all carpool together so 150 (average)*4=600 pounds of "people" I guess we can go with that. I would like to keep it under $5,000 if all possible. I'm pretty good with cars, no mechanic by any means but I know my way around a car and know how to fix certain things on them. My dad is a really good welder and fabricator, he also has grinders, of metal components so battery rack and motor to tranny connector wouldn't be any problem for him. Time isn't an issue, it's not like I have to have this thing going in a week. I don't care if it takes a year and I have a garage to do it in so no concern there. Overnight charging is no issue in my garage. At work would be a challenge since I work at a factory with 2000+ employees so getting a parking spot near the building is almost impossible so even if I worked out a deal with them to charge it, I would probably have to have at least 200 to 400 ft of extension cord to plug it in depending on where I get a spot to park.
> 
> Now on the batteries, obviously the Lithium would be nice, but out of my price range. What would be an alternative choice of batteries with range being the top priority? Would you guys recommend the FB1-4001A or the Warp 9 motor?


RE the battery prices, they were much higher during the summer when I was deciding, or those I knew of. Had I been able to get them for 5 grand I would have gotten them as I paid just over 2 for lead. Prices are getting better and they say with more demand (oem buying) prices will continue to drop. Just start building something that will work and buy the batteries and charger last.

I've got the Advance motor and it's more powerful than the 2.8L V6 I had. I chose it though initially because it is reportedly more efficient than the warp which is what you need.

Here's something I'm not sure of but I wonder if the brushes in the Advance motor can be tweaked for even greater mileage while possibly trading some torque for it. Something about the brushes is the difference between it and the Warp, which incidentally has more torque than the Advance. Even with a 4200lb vehicle, I don't need all the torque this motor delivers, I'd rather have better mileage.


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## ThumperCR (Feb 22, 2009)

What about the Trojan batteries like the T-105 or the T-125's. Anyone use those? Are they any good?


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## Guest (Feb 27, 2009)

ThumperCR said:


> What about the Trojan batteries like the T-105 or the T-125's. Anyone use those? Are they any good?



Trojan batteries are commonly used. They are good. Take care of them and they will treat you fine.


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## Guest (Feb 27, 2009)

ElectriCar said:


> Here's something I'm not sure of but I wonder if the brushes in the Advance motor can be tweaked for even greater mileage while possibly trading some torque for it. Something about the brushes is the difference between it and the Warp, which incidentally has more torque than the Advance. Even with a 4200lb vehicle, I don't need all the torque this motor delivers, I'd rather have better mileage.


What I am aware of is that one is advanced more than the other giving more rpm and less torque. I think there is a limit on how far advanced you can actually go but that question is best left for Jim Husted the motor guru. There are different quality brushes available too.


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## PatricioIN (Jun 13, 2008)

ThumperCR said:


> What about the Trojan batteries like the T-105 or the T-125's. Anyone use those? Are they any good?


many swear by Trojan batts, but also price check the comparable US Battery/Interstate (same thing) versions; you may find them cheaper.


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## ElectriCar (Jun 15, 2008)

ThumperCR said:


> What about the Trojan batteries like the T-105 or the T-125's. Anyone use those? Are they any good?


Not for your mileage requirements unless you're going to trailer them! And you could do that but 24 T125's is 1500Lbs! I still doubt you'd get 60 miles/trip with that.

However I chose the US XC2200 as it's fine for my piddly in-town trips. It was a little better on the watts/dollar and is comparable to the T125 and weighs 62.5Lb each. I have 24 and can go about 30 miles in cold weather, ie 35-40F, a little more on temps in the 50's. Don't yet know about southern US summer temps and how that will work.


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## Technologic (Jul 20, 2008)

ElectriCar said:


> Not for your mileage requirements unless you're going to trailer them! And you could do that but 24 T125's is 1500Lbs! I still doubt you'd get 60 miles/trip with that.
> .


His range requires lithium, very little can be done about that (unless he has access to some lightweight Ni-Cd's or something)


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