Electric Car Purchase - *Possible*

Hopefully around spring/summer time next year I'll be driving a EV for work/pleasure/etc.

I'm having the team over at this location in SC http://www.ampmobiles.com/ do the conversion for me. Basically, they will do what needs to be done to make it electric and I'll be doing the power system myself. Going to use NiMH (for cost reasons) to make it a 48,000 watt power system with a 3 hour recharge time (provided I can get a circuit breaker big enough in my house to handle that load, hehe)

My vehicle has been flawless in working condition and gets great gas mileage at 32 MPH, but I'm willing to sacrifice the gas for the EV since doing my own research of where I go, I never drive more than 20 miles in a day. The good points are, I can resell the engine and other parts to recoup some of the cost of the conversion. The conversion will cost me about $9,000 and the batteries and charge system will run me about $15,000. But, it's no different than if I wanted to buy a new car, so instead of spending the $$$ on a new gas guzzler, I'll be converting mine to give it a second life as an EV.

Why not just buy an EV from the start. Then you will have a car if you ever decided to go more then 20 miles in a day and also have a cute little low cost run around town EV.

Not trying to put down the idea of a conversion just seems an expensive way to go considering you will be losing the ability to travel distance as well.

Why not grab a G.E.M. instead.

http://www.gemcar.com/asp/models.asp

I have been told you can get one for $9,000. Somebody has one down the street from me. I have been waiting to get with them as I was going to take pictures of it and write up their story to post here. They drive it every day as their commuter car and usually don't get home till after dark hence the delay.

EDIT: Just called our local dealer and you can get one with options like stereo, soft top, gell batteries?, chrome wheels, couple other things I can't remember for $9,600 and basic models start at $7,620 MSRP

FAQ quotes:

GEM vehicles are powered by a 72-volt-battery system, which provides power to a custom controller and powers the electric drive motor. The GEM e2, GEM e4, GEM eS, and the GEM eL contain six 12-volt flooded electrolyte batteries.

GEM vehicles are electronically limited to a top speed of 25 mph to meet Federal Low-Speed Vehicle requirements. (you can fix that :wink: )

With an optional fast charge package, GEM vehicles can be fully charged in less than one hour.

A typical GEM vehicle, used under proper conditions with fully charged batteries, will get up to 30 miles on a charge. The GEM e6 with the “Sâ€￾ Package and the GEM eL XD have a driving range of up to 40 miles per charge.

Good point actually. The only downside is I can't find if it's interstate legal or not. With a top speed of 25 MPH, is it road legal as well? Using the NiMH packs that I wanted to use with my vehicle was going to give me about an 80 mile range with a top speed of 85+ MPH. For the driving that I do, I'm afraid I would get run over in the GEM because people around here are not very road friendly.

I don't need interstate access directly, but it doubles the range of some places I would have to drive to putting it out of range of this vehicle. Then there is also the safety standpoints, I need to be about to haul the kids around as well with heating/AC, etc.

It is a good point though, it probably would be cheaper to buy a smaller EV, but to purchase any production EVs puts the price tag up around $35K and higher. For that much, I can convert what I have and keep a vehicle that is in great condition and only swap out the propulsion technology from gasoline to electric.

Thanks for linking those GEM vehicles, I'm always on the lookout for a EV that I can both budget and work with. Any other links you have, I would love for you to share them all because nothing is signed in ink just yet, I have until Spring to figure out how I'm going to meet my EV travel needs.

Elmweaver said:

GEM vehicles are electronically limited to a top speed of 25 mph to meet Federal Low-Speed Vehicle requirements. (you can fix that :wink: )

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Hey, I got a better look at the website. At first I thought they were open models (thinking of the cold/hot weather), but now I see they are contained which is cool. I wonder though, if I modify mine to go highway speeds will it drive it safely at that speed and will it make it illegal to make it go that fast?

Kind of like what we all do with our e-bikes

Well I was thinking you would keep your current car for the interstate or other high speed needs and just use the EV around town. I think I read before that you could easily change the speed controller settings to allow for 35 mph or more which should be fine for around town driving which is all you would be doing with it.

I also believe the batteries can be doubled up or even changed out for the NIMH or others if you wanted but again I see no reason to do that for around town driving.

Want to go to Nashville jump in the Subaru and leave the EV at home or better yet take it with you on a trailer and use it to run around after you get there.

Just seems to make more sense then to drop $24,000 minus parts sales into having a car that can only be used locally even if it does do it real fast. :wink:

Just a thought. - Dan

EDIT: Yes it is road legal but I think you can only use it on roads with a 35 mph limit. You need to check on that. No it is not for interstate use even if you changed the controller. I would think no more then 45mph max. and I would probably be very happy with 35mph myself. Of course where I live you can get a ticket for going 35 in some places too. :lol: :lol: :lol:

I called all the local dealerships today, waiting for them to call me back. They don't have any in stock

I wonder how fast the vehicle would go "safely" is one of my questions for them, hehe.

Really freak your neighbors out get one of these. :lol: :lol: :lol:

http://www.zapworld.com/ZAPWorld.aspx?id=188

Of course one of these cuties would be nice. You will have to rob a bank to pay for it but still it would be nice. :lol: :lol: :lol:

http://www.teslamotors.com

An electric Forester would be an awsome ride.

Elmweaver said:

Really freak your neighbors out get one of these. :lol: :lol: :lol:

http://www.zapworld.com/ZAPWorld.aspx?id=188

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I'm talking to a dealership down in GA about one right now. They have a red one for sale and this appears to be setup for a little more high speed and range. What my goal would be is at least 60 MPH top speed, with a range of at least 40 miles. That will get me down any road I need to (will avoid interstate of course) What is interesting, it's using Gel Cell, deep-cycle batteries to produce a 5,760 watt system to reach 40 MPH, so it will be easy to adapt this to a NiMH and well increase the speed to what I desire at about half the weight of the existing battery system. This will help the range and give me the comfort of knowing that I can drive down any road at a good speed and range, but have some "kick" to it if I need it to dart into traffic for merging.

Mathurin said:

An electric Forester would be an awsome ride.

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I would love to see it as well. I think the cost is what is mainly detering me away from it. Now that everyone has shown me some cheaper alternatives that are in production and do about exactly what I need it to. I guess I'll keep the gas guzzler for really long trips.

Elmweaver said:

Of course one of these cuties would be nice. You will have to rob a bank to pay for it but still it would be nice. :lol: :lol: :lol:

http://www.teslamotors.com

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If I had the $$$, I would sooooo get one!!

Ya, the more I look at the Xebra the more I see it as a good compromise to bring a small family size car to the masses. The travel distance is all that really matters to me as I found out back when I did own a car.

I watched my driving habits a lot over the last few years of ownership and saw I was really never going over 45 except when on an expressway which was maybe 1% of my driving.

I could make due with the 40mph no problem here as on the island speedlimit is 35 max and lower in some places. In the county at large there are places for 50 but most are 45max not that the majority of people observe those limits.

Even if you could only increase the speed to 45 and the range to say 60 you would have an excellent little family run-about in my opinon. - Dan

PS - as for the Tesla, yo baby, I do not like that they never say what the voltage used is nor what size of battery pack is in it. But if you can afford the price tag you probably are not the kind of person that really cares about any of that. You drive it and if it breaks you call them and say fix it and you don't think any more about it other then am I looking good in this thing or not..

Instead of tearing up a car with a good engine, would it not be better to find a car with a blown engine and buy it for a couple of hundred bucks and convert that instead???

BTW. There is a Texas law written around the use of those GEM like vehicles. They call those NEV's or neighborhood electric vehicles and they are permitted on slower urban streets but the law prohibits expressway driving with them. I think the licensing is almost nil too. It's been awhile since I read it.

Right now I think he is looking at getting a Xebra and souping it up. They are a 3 wheel electric car (loop hole) and as such are considered a motorcycle under most states laws. So they are not restricted to the same speed requirments as the GEM.

You are correct about the GEM being a NEV which falls under the Federal Low-Speed Vehicle requirements because it has 4 wheels and can not meet the standard federal automobile requirments for high speed safety.

They really are a glorifed golf cart meant for rich folks who live around the country club in gated communities but need to run down to the 7-11 every now and then without having to fire up the Jaguar. :lol: :lol: :lol:

sabrewalt said:

Instead of tearing up a car with a good engine, would it not be better to find a car with a blown engine and buy it for a couple of hundred bucks and convert that instead???

BTW. There is a Texas law written around the use of those GEM like vehicles. They call those NEV's or neighborhood electric vehicles and they are permitted on slower urban streets but the law prohibits expressway driving with them. I think the licensing is almost nil too. It's been awhile since I read it.

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Yeah, I've decided to leave the good condition gas guzzle and try for a zap vehicle. I've been e-mailing those that already own one to get a feel for what it can do. They offer the vehicle in two "controller " flavors. An upgraded power controller is what they recommend for people living in hilly areas. I'll probably get the upgraded power controller just because it opens up more room to "tweaking" :wink:

From what I gather from other owners, the top speed is listed at 40 MPH, but it's not electronically limited. It's just an average function of the voltage used in the power system. Most tell me it actually hits around 45 to 50 MPH depending on hills, wind, etc. So souping it up to hit 60 MPH won't really be much of a challenge.

It uses a 72 volt @ 80 amp system which is only composed of (6) 12 volt SLA batteries (big ones of course, 72 lbs each). Easy to get to everything in the vehicle for us technical types who like to pull everything apart to see how it works.

As far as financing, it's just an auto loan like any other. It's going to run me about $200 a month. But, I spend more than $200 in gas every month, so basically swapping around the gas bill for an electric bill in the beginning. Insurance will be cheap, it's considered a motorcycle (very low power one at least), that will help to make things cheaper.

If I do end up buying one, I'm certainly going to make a nice running log of the vehicle performance and other factors on the website so that everyone else will know what they are getting into if they decide to buy one.

I went and read the specs on the Zebra. Can't use it but I wish I could. The Ebike covers the close stuff but not my work.. too bad. Would like to see these things get JUST a little more. 100 - 150 miles with no sag and of while we are wishing a 10 minute recharge. For me, in this region, this car is not quite enough. About half I would say. I would even be willing to stay off the freeways which is how everyone around here travels if I could be assured of being able to get home.

Update to this...

Well, as much as I like the Zap vehicles, I've found out it can't be insured in this state nor financed in any way. That's a real shame that so much red tape exist for this, was really looking forward to it.

Guess it means I'll be back to my original plans of converting a gas vehicle to electric.

Not Sure if anyone has posted but these are popular here in the UK esp as MR TV (our equivalent of the US David Letterman drives one)



http://www.goingreen.co.uk/store/content/gwiz

Cheers

Knoxie

I don't mean to rain on the electrical parade, but I just wanted to mention that my parents have a 1998 Firefly 1.0L that they have owned since new. I've put a few thousand km's on it myself and it's incredibly economical to drive.

http://www.metrompg.com/

4.1L/100km is right on the mark, and these cars can be had for less than the price of a top line electric bicycle.

Now this would be an interesting project. On that site, the guy claims the Firefly needs 5.4hp to maintain 70km/h. So how about a home built hybrid? Mount up a couple of freewheeled hub motors on each rear wheel and use them in traffic or for short hops. Use the gas motor for highway trips, and a second high output alternator to recharge the batteries, or maybe a clutch on the hubs...