Build Your Own Electric Vehicle

Why We Need To Be Converting Our Existing Vehicles to Electric Vehicles and our Hybrid Electric Vehicles to Plug In Hybrid Electric Vehicles. Besides The Fact it will help Stop Our Oil Addiction! So They Can Be More Like An Electric Vehicle.

The Gulf Oil spill clearly is making us think about our energy policies. Another spill can happen on another rig. How many rigs are out there? This Only Tells me the same thing I said on 9/11. This is for our economy, national security and the environment.  

Bottom line:

We need to change our ways!

How about the fact that you can convert an existing vehicle to an electric vehicle today? Right now! And it would cost you less than some new cars on the market. 

Internal combustion engines are nearly at the end of their tech nological lifetime. Almost all improvements in meeting today's higher Corporate Aver age Fuel Economy (CAFE) requirements have been achieved via improving electronics technology. By 2020, CAFE mandates all new cars built will have the fuel economy of 35 miles per gallon. Since the fuel efficiency of an electric vehicle (EV) is more than that, an EV will always be the best approach.

People are NOW trying to move the market toward the electric car; some are trying:

    •    Hydrogen/fuel cell cars

    •    Buy (Tesla electric cars or signing up 16,000 strong for the Nissan Leaf electric vehicle)

    •    To convert hybrid cars to either a grid-connected or plug-in hybrid electric vehicle

    •    By buying hybrid-electric cars in droves

    •    By purchasing low-speed electric vehicles (GEM car)

    •    Driving the last remaining car company built electric cars, excluding the Tesla Roadster (EV1 or the Toyota RAV4 EV or the TH!NK City (part-time with Ford Motor Company)

What you are seeing today in electric vehicles is just the tip of the iceberg. It is guaranteed that future improvements will make them faster, longer-ranged, and even more efficient. While an internal combustion engine has hundreds of moving parts, an electric motor only has one. That's one of the main reasons why electric cars are so efficient. To make an electric vehicle out of a car, pickup, or van you are driving now, all you need to do is take out the internal combustion engine along with all related ignition, cooling, fueling, and exhaust system parts, and add an electric motor, batteries, and a controller. Hey, it doesn't get any simpler than this for a mechanic, service station or even automakers; yes automakers!

Electric vehicles are a great way to drive and make a real contribution to the country. By driving an oil free, gasoline free car, you reduce our country’s reliance on imported oil; that will make you friends. 

All the available technology has just about been squeezed out of internal combustion engine vehicles, and they are going to be even more environmentally squeezed in the future. This will hit each buyer right in the pocketbook-incremental gains will not come inexpensively. 

Sooner or later, we will get to an electric car by the car companies. Whether it happens in my lifetime is not the question. My point is that you can get an electric vehicle today. You can also take any vehicle you want and convert it to an electric vehicle. We can also encourage the fix-it guy down the street to help us with our conversion so that more mechanics across the country are building electric cars.

Believe it or not if the words “electric car” or “electric vehicle” appear prominently on the outside of your car, pickup, or van, you will not want for instant friends at any stoplight, shopping center, gas station or just playing stop and go on the highway. One time I was driving a Toyota RAV4 electric vehicle on the West Side Highway in Manhattan with the window down. All different types of people were intrigued.  (“Is that an electric car? When can I get one? How far does it go? Is it as good as people say?” Or the best was, “That is one phat ride!”)

Whether you owned or even driven a 2010 Tesla Roadster Sport, an old EV1 from GM (what a ride!!!), the Toyota RAV4, the TH!NK City, a Solectria Force or a converted Porsche 914 to all electric, or Ford Ranger Pickup Truck, or built-from-scratch chassis with custom kitcar body, your electric vehicle is a sexy, quiet, technologically spiffy show-stopper, and everyone who has an EV or not can work together for the common good.

It gets better: EVs carry no combustible fuels, 20,000-volt spark plug ignition circuits, hot exhaust manifolds, catalytic converters, or hot radiators on board. 

Those who enjoy:

    •    gas tank explosions (caused by accidents—as seen in the movies)

    •    engine compartment fires (caused by ignition or hot manifolds—as seen by the side of the road)

    •    hot radiator coolant explosions (caused by improper radiator cap removal; sadly many of us have experienced this firsthand)

    •    starting forest fires (caused by hot cat alytic converters parked over dry grass) simply have to go elsewhere for their entertainment, because it ain’t happening here!

EVs produce no emissions of any kind to harm the air, and virtually everything in them is recyclable. Plus, every electric vehicle conversion represents one less polluting internal combustion vehicle on the road. Electric vehicles are not only the most modern and efficient forms of transportation, but they also help reduce our carbon footprint today!

Regardless of your decision to buy, build, or convert an electric vehicle, it is going to take you time to do it, but certainly less than it used to. There is a growing network of new and used electric vehicle dealers (low speed, electric vehicle dealers, electric vehicle conversion shops, their own cars). (check sources section at the end of my book Build Your Own Electric Vehicle, 2nd Edition).

There-in are so many television shows showing people tricking out their cars, adding better engines, or doing just about anything to make it go fast and be safe. Conversions to an electric vehicle or a plug-in hybrid electric vehicles do all that and more. They allow the next generation to have a safer world without relying on foreign sources of oil while giving our kids really clean and cool cars to drive.

On the other hand, electric vehicles are still in their technological infancy—a vast amount of basic improvement is still possible, in addition to any electronics technology gains. Unquestionably, the future looks bright for electric vehicles because the best is yet to come.

(Excerpts of this post come from my book with McGraw-Hill Professional, Build Your Own Electric Vehicle 2nd Edition and Build Your Own Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle)

--This is a story by Seth Leitman, Founder of  The Green Living Guy and editor of the TAB Green Guru Guides. Check out the recent book he edited, Renewable Energies For Your Home.

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