How to Convert Your Car to an Electric Vehicle
15 July 2010 | Green Cars | No Comments
Economically speaking, converting a gasoline/diesel powered car in an electric vehicle would bring a series of benefits. You will get a vehicle that costs only a few cents per mile to run and moreover, your car will be environmentally-friendly. Now, the conversion simply consists in replacing your old engine with an electric engine. Usually, a conversion like this will cost you about $9000 ($6000 – the engine and $1500-$3000 – for batteries and installation). If you want to get a lower price you will have to use an older engine and some cheaper batteries (you can negotiate on price so everything depends on you). I’ll just tell you what you have to do.
1. First, you’ll need a car. I suggest you to use a small car. If the car is bigger, then the engine must be stronger and therefore more expensive. You should also take into account that the batteries are not really cheap (you can try to buy some parts from www.electroauto.com ).
2. The second step is to throw all that lies under the hood (all that is gasoline related) and I refer to: Engine, Gas tank, Coolant tank, Exhaust, Muffler, Starter, Radiator and Fuel lines and filter. Removing these parts, your car will be much lighter and much easier to be propelled by the electric motor. You can also sell the parts you’ve removed to get money for your new electric engine.
3. After you have bought and installed the new engine, you must find a way to set up transmission. I think this is the most difficult thing to do because is depending on your new engine model and your old transmission. In order to make things work, you’ll need a special adapter to line up with both the transmission and the end of the motor (you can build it or buy it – is nothing but a piece of metal that serves to connect the transmission with the electric engine).
4. You can use the original coupler or you can try to use a “Lovejoy”-style connector like in this video. Now you need to line up the motor and transmission, using the coupler between them and the adapter plates. You can use many methods to make transmission work, but you have to ensure that your car is safe to drive (you can get help from an auto service).
5. Your car will need many 12V batteries, depending on your electric motor. Arrange the batteries in your trunk or in any empty place in your car. The electrical connections between the batteries and your engine must be high quality connections. You should also boy a switcher and charger for your batteries (here you can use controllers from ElectroAuto).
That’s it! You can figure out that is not too easy to convert a car into an electric vehicle. If you are not very good in mechanics, recommend you to ask for help from an auto service. Good luck!
Tags: electric car, electric car conversion, electric engine, electric vehicle, ev conversion, zero-emissions car, zero-emissions vehicle