Got to thinking of driving on electrity.

[Woodbutcher]

Do you have a diesel truck or car Mike? Maybe converting one over to run on old cooking oil would work. Plus you may be able to get all the old oil for free from the local restaurants. They have o pay to get rid of it. Think of it as farming ....sort of, it's still corn!

[wagondude]

http://www.grassrootsev.com/

http://www.treehugger.com/culture/conve ... hicle.html

http://www.electriccarpartscompany.com/ ... p_108.html

Some information to get you started. It is not a bad Idea for what you want to do with it. Most full electric vehicles can be built with a range of about 40 miles (depending on battery condition and capacity). it is not cheap to do it right, though. But if you start with a cheap compact car, you could put together what you need for a couple grand and still be able to run highway speeds. I could easily put one together for my Wife's short commute to work, but she likes her creature comforts. Kind of counter productive.

[Shadow Catcher]

There is a gentileman on the VSaab forum who has done an electrical conversion of a Saab Sonett http://www.saabhistory.com/2006/12/08/1 ... ectric-car and another Saab 96 http://www.saabhistory.com/2007/12/17/a ... ic-vehicle. http://www.dailyturismo.com/2012/11/10k ... rsion.html
The Sonett is a very light weight fiberglass body two seater. only 10,000 were produced for the entire world (I own two, one of them being restored). Quite frankly even using conventional led acid traction batteries it is horribly expensive to do.

[asianflava]

I was kinda looking into it a while back. I had a Mazda/Ranger truck, the engine was fine, but all the accessories gave me problems. I got tired of fixing coolant problems, fuel tank leak, power steering problems, etc. I was thinking about converting it to electric since it was a manual transmission, and had plenty of room for batteries in the bed. After a quick internet search, I found that the kits would cost about what the truck was worth, and that was before you bought the batteries. You could probably cobble up something for less, but the 3 main components; controller, motor, and transmission adapter aren't cheap so it won't be that much cheaper.

[48Rob]

Only 10 miles?

A moped at just 20 mph will have you there in 30 minutes.
At 40 mph you'll be there in 15 minutes.

An electric bicycle will do the job too, if you can find one cheap.
Mopeds do go for cheap...

Rob

[jeffmutch]

Shoot, for 20 miles a day, I'd use a pedal bike and call it a new workout plan.

For a young buck on his way to honeymoon night, It could be a dual purpose.

[Gary and Cheri]

http://www.theautomoto.com/

83 mpg with some protection from the elements, a little storage space, reasonably quick and fairly low cost for a brand new one. It even has a radio

I've thought about one for my self now that I sold my big Triumph.

Gary

[jstrubberg]

The issue with EV vehicles right now is range. If you have to do more than about 30 miles round trip, you start having to make some huge concessions either in size of vehicle or cost due to current battery technology.

If you can get by on low range, EV is a great way to go. It's very, very cheap to operate and pretty well future proof, other than eventual battery replacement. The only other big downfall is heat and AC are a problem. There are tons of resources out there on converting existing cars and trucks.

[Hillmann]

A homemade electric vehicle will only have a range of about 30-35 miles. They are easy enough to build but pretty expensive if you buy all the parts new. A nine inch motor (about the right size for a GEO metro) is about $1000 new. Then you also need your controllers so you have a "throttle", which can cost another $500-$1000. And then batteries and a charger. If you can get an old electric forklift, it will have all of the parts you need and then you can scrap the metal of the forklift and come out ahead if scrap is high enough.

Also if you add more batteries it doesn't really help your range, because more batteries means more weight which means more juice to get it moving.

[Woodbutcher]

http://www.theautomoto.com/

83 mpg with some protection from the elements, a little storage space, reasonably quick and fairly low cost for a brand new one. It even has a radio

I've thought about one for my self now that I sold my big Triumph.

Gary

Gary, that thing is cool! Never seen one. It would look good sitting next to the Porsche in the garage.

[asianflava]

http://www.theautomoto.com/

83 mpg with some protection from the elements, a little storage space, reasonably quick and fairly low cost for a brand new one. It even has a radio

I've thought about one for my self now that I sold my big Triumph.

Gary

That thing reminds me of the defunct BMW C1. BMW said that it was so safe that you didn't need a helmet.

[coop74]

Just a thought based on your past posts...

have you considered powering a beater pick up with Wood Gas as the power source. Check it out on the web. During WW2 it was a popular conversion.

Just a suggestion.

Big Coop

[Woodbutcher]

Slow, I visited a large woodworking shop that converted their furnaces to run on used cooking oil. It did cost him some money to set up, but after that it is real cheap to run. He has a few restaurants that give him his oil. Plus once the local people knew what he was doing people would deliver him their used oil. There is much more labor involved with this system, but if you have more time then money it could work. Google can be your friend!

[Hillmann]

You really don't need to convert the veggie oil into bio diesel. The truck will run with out problems on the oil if you first start and warm up the engine on diesel. Although in the winter you will need some type of tank and line heaters to keep the oil from gelling. You will also probably want to add an extra filter or two on the gas line.


And a dimmer switch will not work for a throttle on an electric vehicle. It would melt.

[mezmo]

Doesn't straight vegetable oil need to be converted to bio diesel
because of problems with glycerin clogging up things when using
straight vegetable oil as fuel ? Read that somewhere if I recall
correctly.