Just drove a Chevy Volt

[thought]

I drop the kids off at school then drive home and take the moto to work.

Rain or shine. Year round.

I'm realizing that for all of my driving needs all I need is an electric golf cart.

Oooooorrrrr... a Ural

[Howie]

I have been wanting to build my own home brew electric car for some time now, could be pretty quick around town and wouldn't be terribly expensive to build compared to the price of a new volt.

Inspired by the white zombie http://www.plasmaboyracing.com/whitezombie.php

Sure, it may not have fancy features such as regenerative braking, but it would still be one mean street machine.

With those specs I wouldn't expect a range that much greater than 1/4 mile between charges.

[Drunken Monkey]

Oooooorrrrr... a Ural

I came >< this close to buy-in from the wife to buy one for just that purpose. Until *I* realized we could get 4 used Toyotas for the price of one Ural.

Curse you responsible part of my brain 

[AdmiralKit]

The local community college in my home town does a home-built electric car course every summer... managed to get in for a week of the two-week course, we took a donated HHR and converted it to all electric - fascinating experience.  I've got a CB750 chassis sitting in my shed waiting for me to stop blowing all of my money on Ducati parts that I'm going to try to build an all electric bike out of.  My problem is that the difference between doing it cheap and doing it right is usually about a factor of 6 to 10, and I'm not good about doing things on the cheap and am lacking the expertise to engineer it if I did it right.

[ungeheuer]

looks a heck of a lot better than that bastard child of the Aztec known as the Prius

if you're not into fossil fuel power

Where I live a car like this will mostly be coal powered  .

[ducatiz]

I came >< this close to buy-in from the wife to buy one for just that purpose. Until *I* realized we could get 4 used Toyotas for the price of one Ural.

Curse you responsible part of my brain 

what are you going to do with 4 used toyotas?  make a train?

[mitt]

The thing I liked about driving it was a more connected feeling than a typical newer chevy sedan with automatic transmission.  It almost felt like a manual - the acceleration and deceleration was instant.  The steering also felt good.

The blind spots are terrible due to the nice styling, but the forward and backward slow speed cameras are good and the trajectory system is cool - looks like a video game or something.

mitt

[thought]

I came >< this close to buy-in from the wife to buy one for just that purpose. Until *I* realized we could get 4 used Toyotas for the price of one Ural.

Curse you responsible part of my brain 

You have to consider the cool factor you'll be rubbing off onto your kids when you drop them off in a Ural at school though.  That alone is priceless.  Instant school playground cred.

Used Toyota... not so much. haha

[zooom]

what are you going to do with 4 used toyotas?  make a train?

1 to drive...and 3 for spare parts?!?!?!?

[sno_duc]

1 to drive...and 3 for spare parts?!?!?!?

I actually had a friend in Grand Lake CO who (they, father and brother also) did that with Triumph's; TR 4 (running), TR 4a (Running), TR 3 (running), a pair of TR3s's (parts), TR 4 (parts), plus a couple more.

[zooom]

I actually had a friend in Grand Lake CO who (they, father and brother also) did that with Triumph's; TR 4 (running), TR 4a (Running), TR 3 (running), a pair of TR3s's (parts), TR 4 (parts), plus a couple more.

I used to know a guy who bought 3 Yugo's so that he could have 1 running car and spare parts at the ready...he bought all 3 for $350 and had a running car for 4.5 years and over a 100K miles....finally said to hell with this, and rented a flatbed towtruck with rear towing hook-up and dragged all 3 to the junkyard in 1 fell swoop and they gave him $500 for the lot which he used as the downpayment for his next car while he drove his sisters car for a couple weeks while shopping...

[cokey]

You can find it on youtube.. some one has a series of vidsconverting a reg 03 i think dodge neon to all electric..  came out great.  He has done it to a few cars..  something to the equivalent of 60-80 mpg..   heres a forum just about fuel saving..   http://ecomodder.com/forum/

Some guys averaging over 50 mpg out of reg 30 mpg cars...

[triangleforge]

Somewhere in my top 10 "that'd be fun to try" projects is an electric 914 - WAY more fun than a golf cart...

http://www.electroauto.com/gallery/vp914.shtml

[Scooter Montgomery]

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Volkswagen-Jetta-/350514992465?pt=US_Cars_Trucks&hash=item519c525551

here you go.

[Drunken Monkey]

what are you going to do with 4 used toyotas?  make a train?

You laugh now, but come the zombie apocalypse I'll be riding in style.

Specifically: Toyota-Land-Train style.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Volkswagen-Jetta-/350514992465?pt=US_Cars_Trucks&hash=item519c525551

here you go.

There are more than a few local companies doing DIY controllers for various electric conversions.

Mind you I decided with the money I saved getting a $3K Toyota I can spend the summer finding a decent sidecar rig.