I am new, very interested, but need help!

I'm extremely interested in converting a vehicle or motorcycle to electric power. I'm currently reading "Build your own Electric Vehicle" and I haven't finished, but I have alot of questions.

1.) Would it be cheaper to convert a motorcycle (like a Honda Interceptor) than a light weight car, like a Civic?

2.) I read that Mission Motorsports is releasing a bike that can go 150 MPH on 150 mile range, but everywhere I read the maximum for conversion bikes is about 70 MPH and 50 mile range. Are the motors/components that are used in the Mission bike available to the public?

3.) If for some reason I had to sell this bike/car for financial reasons, do electric vehicles typically keep their value? And are they easy to sell?

Thank you for your help!

Welcome. First recognise that, according to laws everywhere, bicycles and motorcycles are vehicles too. Their operators pay taxes and are entitled to an equal share of the road.

Think about it. A motorcycle is lighter weight and less complicated than a car. You have to give as much thought to either project but motorcycles are generally easier to work on while requiring less material overall. (smaller motor, smaller battery, smaller tires, etc.)

The hype available from Mission is free to the public. 150mph and 150 mile range isn't what they're talking about. Choose one or the other. The homebuilders here who are doing conversions are more honest about performance.

IMO, a backyard built EV is worth about squat in the larger market. You probably have to sell it to fellow aficionados and amateurs through a club listing. You won't make anything on your labour and you will loose money on the parts unless you're a super-scrounger.
Some early production electric automobiles and bicycles may have value as a collectible.

Welcome to here!

A motorcycle is going to be far cheaper and easier to convert than a car.
As an example, here's one minor problem you would need to overcome with a car:
A honda civic on batteries is still going to be heavy, if not heavier. how are you going to run the power steering when the car is moving at parking lot speeds since the electric motor doesn't need to idle at 700rpm.
thats just an example of the hundreds to thousands of little problems you need to overcome on any given conversion.
On a motorbike, you have hundreds fewer engineering obsticles.
And on a bicycle, you have even fewer.

If you are open to suggestions, might I suggest converting a bicycle first? treat the $1000 or so bucks it will cost as training expenses to help avoid mistakes when you move up to a car or a motorbike. It might save you thousands later. Others here have gone that rout.

as for Hype surrounding the 150mph bike. Sure, thats easy, possably able to do it on a sinle Etek with the right combo of voltage and gearing. But with the top of the line batteries you would drain it dry in 2 miles. what Mission doesn't say is they can build a bike that will do 150mph, OR 150 miles range, probably at 5mph.

The thing to keep in mind is the power needed. Batteries capacity are rated in Watt hours. That means how many watts they can produce for 1 hour. Horsepower is also a measurement of wats. It actualy means 750 watts. So to run 1 horsepower for 1 hour, you need 750 watthours. And that means a battery capable of 750watt hours.

Now to make sense of that for a motorbike. if it takes 8 horsepower to go 60mph, and you want to drive for 1 hour, you will need a battery capable of 6000 watt hours.
1 horsepower = 750 Watts so
8 horsepower = 6000 Watts
6000 watts for 1 hour = 6000 watt hours
That means you would need a 6000Watt hour battery. at around $1 a watt for good batteries, like LifePO4, thats a $6000 battery. its also close to 120 pounds, and would take some real engineering to fit onto a motorbike.

Are you planning to take your ev on the highway?

I've done a bunch of bicycle conversions and am currently working on a car conversion. The parts haven't been too expensive so far and i'm hoping to get everything for less than $6k. This is cheap because it's not going to go too fast. I'm targeting a top speed of around 50 ~ 55 mph.

In my research, i've found that the prices for the more powerful motor and controller are much higher than something a little less powerful. For example, a highway capable car motor is closer to $1500 whereas a city car motor is closer to $800.

Perhaps given the same goals a motorcycle conversion will cost a little less than a car if only because a car is a little heavier and would require more batteries. There seems to be more car conversions out there and the methods are a little more straight forward.

If all you need to go is around 30 mph, a bicycle conversion makes a lot of sense.

You sound like me about 2 years ago. After looking at blogs, sites that sell conversion parts etc, a year later I was still trying to figure out how to simply afford a conversion that would do what I needed. Then I started to look at maybe a motorcycle, At that point good lifepo4 was still pretty unavaliable so I wasn't too happy with that either. About a year ago I decided, well, I could afford an electric bike. THANK GOD I did that! The stuff I learned was about 20 times cheaper than the same mistakes on a car. The stuff I learned is priceless and the mistakes were many.

Seriously, Spend about $1500 on a bike motor and learn a bit about 48v before you take the plunge. Along the way you may find, as I did, that the bike has a few advantages over bigger stuff like cars and motorcycles. I haven't stopped wanting a bigger EV, but I have been suprised at how well my mundane day to day transportation needs are served by a mere bicycle. If you really need 150 mile range, I doubt you'll achieve that with a first EV conversion at highway speeds. One real good way to try a conversion extra cheap is to do a volkswagon. See Oatnets thread for a nice example of that.