Planning Stage: choosing the donor car

So, I've covered who I am, and what I'm doing, and some of the reasons for it. Let's do a quick recap:

1) Me: Computer Scientist with very little (i.e. none) mechanical experience

2) What I'm doing: Converting a Geo Storm to an electric vehicle

3) Why I'm doing it: My 1994 Honda Accord LX has some age related issues that I just don't want to spend the money on to fix. Also, it feels incredibly wasteful to use a 2,800 lbs. vehicle to drive all 180 lbs. of me 16 miles a day, with three seats and the trunk completey empty. I like the idea of an electric vehicle, not because I have a gas hog or dreams that it is going to save me thousands of dollars (though, as we will see later, it may), but because it's neat. Computer scientist == geek.

That's a pretty good summary. So let's talk about my criteria.

1) I need to get at least 25 miles on a single charge. This is enough for my 16 mile trip, and some left over for possible detours, lunch trips, adverse driving conditions, etc. Most EVs can get this without problem.

2) I need to be able to go at least 45 MPH. The highest speed limit in town is 60 MPH, but I don't go on that road that often, if ever, and I could avoid it. Other than that, 45 is as fast as I'd need to go.

3) I want a two door car. While I realize this does not necessarily make the car smaller, it will feel like it, which is what I wanted. I realize this is not rational in the least, but I feel bad about driving around what seems like a big car. If it doesn't seem like a big car, then I won't feel bad. Rationality has very little to do with this. But in fact, most two doors are significantly smaller and lighter (about a foot or so, and weigh around 300 lbs. less), so while it's a completely superflous decision, it does also serve a purpose, even if on accident.

4) I wanted a sporty car. Not necessarily a sports car, but something sport and fun looking. This ties in to #3 as well. Again, this is just something I wanted, not for any rational reason. But if I'm going to sink a small car's worth of money into this, I want to get something I like.

5) It had to be a manual transmission. This wasn't a preference, but a necessity due to technical issues that I will discuss later.

6) I want to keep the budget under $6000.

So, that gave me some good starting points. The last one was the first considered; I needed a cheap car. That meant used, and used for a while. This lead me to search for 1990-2000 cars. Old enough to have some miles on them and be cheap, not so old that they're just rust-bucket derelict, though I did see plenty of those as well.

I looked on Craigslist.org and found several vehicles that fit my budget in the $500-$1000 range. I didn't want to spend over $1000 because that severly cuts into my already rather optomistic budget.

Next, I elminitated those with more than trivial body damage. Motor is blown? Great! Has a dent in the fender? Eh, not so great. It sounds kind of twisted, but when you're going to gut the engine compartment, what's in there doesn't really matter. On the other hand, spending money fixing superficial issues eats up your budget for no real reason. I didn't cross anything off for a dent or a rust hole, but if it had a fender replaced and was a mistmatched color, or a cracked windscreen, etc. I marked those off.

Between this and my sporty, two door requirement, it didn't leave too many to consider, maybe a dozen cars. Now I started looking at what would make a good EV, and crossed off those that weighed too much. This crossed off more cars than you might think. For example, the 1990 Toyota Supra weighs in at a hefty curb weight of 3,219 lbs.

Let's pause here a moment to talk about why that's important. Weight pretty much determines everything else with the EV. The heavier the car, the larger the motor you will need. The larger the motor, the more voltage you will need to reach decent speeds. That means more batteries, a beefier controller and charge system, all of which adds even more weight. For a typical EV conversion you need to aticipate adding at least 600 lbs. The reason for this is that even though you are removing the heat sheilding, exhaust system, engine, and radiator, along with some other related bits, you're also adding 10-20 batteries at about 70 lbs. each. Quick math, that's 700 to 1,400 lbs. right there on its own. This is mitigated by the weight of those internal combustion bits, but not entirely absorbed.

So if you take a 3,200+ lb. car and add 600 - 1,000 lbs, you now have quite a monster on your hands. The car will handle more like a small truck, especially when you take into account that many EV converters do not hook up power steering (I'll talk more about that in future posts). Also keep in mind that all this added weight on an already heavy car can exceed the gross vehicle weight, either on an individual axle or on a more central component. And you still need to include the weight of you and your passengers/cargo in the gross weight, and take it into account for your power consumption too.

The rule of thumb is that you should shoot for 2,500 lbs. or less. This left me with the following choices in a manual transmission:

1) Toyota Celica - curb weight 2,496 lbs.

2) Eagle Talon - curb weight 2,550 lbs. This is technically over 2,500, but just barely.

3) Geo Storm - curb weight 2,280 lbs.

4) Saturn SC2 - curb weight 2,363 lbs.

You can see that from an objective point of view, the last two are the most favorable. For those of you wondering about the aero-dynamics of these cars, they're all in the .29-.32 drag coefficient, so that won't be a significant consideration.

Now each of these had pros and cons based on the specifics of the cars. The Eagle was perfect except for the motor and the weight, at $600 and was within half an hour's drive. The Celica had minor body damage, only cost $550, but was three hours away. The Saturn was an hour away and $700, but the description was very non-technical. I had concerns there may have been more than just motor problems. They didn't even know the model - I had to look up some pictures and visually identify it.

The Storm had minor engine trouble - it would still crank and run, but appeared to have clogged injectors, as the fuel preasure wasn't there, and some cylinders seemed not to be firing properly. This made it undrivable, but functional enough to know everything else was OK. Keep in mind that even with the conversion, the gear box and transmission still have to be good, or you have to replace them. It was the farthest away at 3 hours and some change, and the most expensive at $1000. I really loved the body style though!

I contacted each of them, and the only one I ever heard back from was the Storm owner. Bingo! I explained to him that $1000 was a bit out of budget (I'm only getting $800 for my Honda) and he agreed to come down to $850. Perfect!

At the lightest, this also gives me more options. With the Talon, I was going to have to get at least an 8' motor and run at 120 volts. There was the same with the Celica. The Saturn and Storm I could both afford to scale back quite a bit, since they're 200-300 lbs. less. I think with either of these, I can use a 96 volt pack and get the performance that meets my criteria. That saves me four six-volt batteries, or 230 lbs. and about $930, depending on the price you get. That's really appealing! The 6' motor is also lighter and less expensive.

In fact, the entire thing is going to be so much lighter than I anticipated, I plan on getting a multi-volt charger, which costs a little more, but start off with only a 72 volt pack. Once I've tried that out, I can easily beef it up to 96 volts if the performance isn't acceptable, but if it is, this saves me another four six-volt batteries. Good for the budget and the handling, and as long as the performance is good enough, it will be fine.

Now, with a 120 volt system, I could probably expect, say 80 miles of range. However, I don't really need 80 miles. Going back to my goals, I only need 25 or so. I think the 72 volt pack will give me the range and speed I need, and I can save up and upgrade later on if I want to take this out onto the highway or visit someone in a neighboring town.

To finish off this post, here's a picture of a Geo Storm. The one I am getting is white, and I'll be picking it up next week. I'm so excited!

The Conversion begins

First, a welcome to everyone, and a short introduction about who I am and what this page is about.

Let's start with the site; these are (or are going to be) the chronicles of my attempt at converting a Geo Storm to an electric vehicle, i.e. completely battery powered. I plan to detail my decisions, my reasoning, my progress and expenses as much as possible.

So now, a little about me. My name is Phil, and I have my BS in Computer Science. I work for an internet hosting company in technical support in North Carolina. I have about this much mechanical experience: ||. That is to say, almost none. I can identify an automobile when I see one (at least most of the time). I'm familiar with the basic concepts of the bits; round wheels are good. Wheels that are square on the bottom are bad. Loud bangs and clunks are bad (usually). You can see the kind of automotive savvy I have.

Now seriously, I have done very little automotive work. I changed the oil in my dad's SUV one time when I was in highschool at his urging and under his supervision, just so that I could say I've done it. I have always paid to have my oil changed. I replaced a dead battery once, which required removing an air filter. I replaced a turn signal bulb. That's about the extent of the automotive experience I have.

So what got me started on a conversion to an electric vehicle?

I recently became the father of three (new baby, not triplets, thankfully!), and so had to get a minivan for room for the third carseat. I like the van; it gets good gas mileage (for a van) and fits our needs very well. But this left my 1994 Honda Accord LX as a single passenger vehicle. I used to drive it everywhere because we only had one car, and I didn't give it much thought. Whenever we went somewhere, we had every seat filled.

But now that the carseats are in the van, I only drive the Honda to work and back. Being the only person in a 2,822 lbs. vehicle and driving to work by myself every day made me realize how underused the Honda was. I didn't really need a four dour, four seater anymore, I just needed to move me. My commute to work is about 8 miles one way, so bicycling or walking wasn't really an option. The public transportation here is a rolling slum, and a slow one at that. I could never get to work on time, and my shift doesn't end unti well into the evening, when the busses have stopped. I tried getting a car pool together, but nobody was ever willing to do more than talk about it. It didn't help we were pretty evenly split on smokers and non-smokers, and neither wanted to put up with the other in their car.

I decided to do some research, and started looking for a smaller commuter car. In my searches, I found a list of the "best commuter cars" from some review or another. They were all four seaters! The Accord wasn't listed, but it's little sister the Civic was. Talk about a disappointment!

Disappointed in my results, I started looking for a single person commuter car. The first result was this:

http://www.electric-bikes.com/cars/ready.html

Cool! Small cars, efficient, cheap to operate, perfect! Well, if you look at the site, you'll notice a small catch. None of these vehicles, except the BugE, are actually accessible. Most are extremely expensive ($20,000 range) preorders for vehicles that, so far as I can see from their information, are not far enough along to even give a firm production start date. Many are still in the design/prototyping phase. Others are in production, but not available in the US.

The BugE was the one big exception. It seemed perfect. An electric vehicle, cheap, efficient, about 100 hours (my estimate for me, the average time I've seen people spend is about 80 hours) of assembly time, no welding, almost too good to be true. Well, in fact, it was, at least for me.

The total cost of the parts is about 5,300, plus shipping, which I was informed was going to be around $600 to the east coast. Now a motorcycle is the most comparable alternative, and 5,900 for a new motor cycle isn't outrageous; for example, the cheapest Kawasaki Ninja (an excellent and very popular starter bike) is the 2009 Kawasaki Ninja 250R: $3,999. It's slightly bigger brother, 2009 Kawasaki Ninja 500R: $5,499. We're not talking a ridiculous cost here.

But there's a few catchs to the BugE.

1) You have to do all the assembly yourself. This is known up front, but it's worth stating again.

2) The $5,900 doesn't actually include everything you need. You might think it does, as it has all the important bits you think about. But if you look closely, there's a throttle potentiometer (potbox). But no actual throttle. You have to buy it separately, along with the the handlebars that it will attach to. There are no mirrors either. And this doesn't include the cost of batteries.

3) This one really irks me. Through no fault of the BugE's creator, it is incredibly difficult to get this registered and tagged in some places. Very few states have come up with coherent guidelines for a vehicle like the BugE. In my own home state, it would be classified as a motorcylce, because it has "no more than three wheels in contact with the ground at any time." I suppose the Dukes of Hazzards were technically driving a motorcycle most of the time too. But with it being classified as a motorcycle, I would have to get a motorcycle liscence, which would require me actually learning how to ride a motorcylce, the prospect of which I find terrifying.

Additionally, because it is a self-assembled vehicle, I would be the "manufacturer," "wholesaler," "retailer" and owner/buyer. As such, it's up to me to get it inspected, get a VIN number, determine it's value for taxation, create it's title, register it, etc. Getting insurance for it was also going to be a challenge, as my current insurer was not willing to provide me a quote for it without actually inspecting the assembled vehicle. It was an exceptional amount of red tape to get through for a $5,900 electric bike (with an extra wheel), that wasn't ready to run without another $1000 or so worth of investment. Looking at evalbum.com, it looks like a lot of people were spending $10,000 and up to actually finish their BugE's as well.

Now don't get me wrong; I think the BugE is a great little vehicle. I encourage people who are intersted in it to visit the site at http://www.bugev.net/BugE_Concept.html. This just didn't seem like the thing for me to start with. There were just too many hurdles to overcome and it killed my enthusiasm. With the suprising extra cost, I also balked at trying to do this.

With that idea shelved, I just went on driving the Honda, feeling a little guilty and silly. The gas doesn't really hurt too badly for it; $25 every three weeks or so at ~$2.50 USD/gal. But it is a 15 year old car, and some things are starting to act up. The spedometer doesn't work all the time anymore. I tried to get a quote to fix it from three different places and got 0 answers. I didn't feel like just dropping it off with a blank check, so it's stayed broken. The door motors don't lock the doors correctly anymore. One of the windsheild wiper jets doesn't work properly, even after replacing it. And to top it off, it needs new tires. Now it's going to cost almost as much to fix it, possibly more, than it is actually worth.

So, I decided to look into a new (to me) car. I had also seen the conversion cars on evalbum.com while doing BugE research, so I thought maybe I would try my hand at that!

Now I do realize that I'll be spending a significant amount to do this. Most often I'm seeing quotes of $6-10,000 USD for the conversion. Just doing my own math, I'm seeing at least $5,000. I'm going to try to keep it under $6,000, but it will be tight. I expect it will take at least 250 hours to make it.

Now I realize that this sounds hypocritical. It may be. But thanks in large part to kiwiev.com, I have a lot of enthusiasm that died off before with the BugE. Also, there are some pros to a conversion over a kit.

1) Little red tape. There are no standards that need to be followed in North Carolina, that I have been able to find, for an EV conversion. This makes it as easy to register and title as a regular car, and it already has a VIN.

2) Insurance is easy. "Yes, I have a Geo Storm I'd like to get insured." Done. Now they were not willing to give me full coverage becuase of the modifications without a ridiculous premium, but liability and personal damage was easy.

3) worst case scenario, I fail, and still have a sellable car shell. Not a good scenario, but I will have EV parts I can resell, a shell I can sell, and at least recoup some funds. With the BugE, I would have a handful of parts to sell, and some hefty dump fees. Agian, I'm not trying to be down on the BugE, but it is, by design, so different that it lacks the broad resale value even an older car shell has.

4)The money saved on gas and upkeep will be good as well. Especially because I was very horrible about getting it done in the first place. I doubt the Honda will last anywhere near as long as it could, as I have been rather horrible about things like oil changes, tire rotations, service checks, etc. With this, I'll have to monitor the batteries and rotate the tires. Done! At least, that's the plan.

Well I think that's long enough for one day. Later this week I should be getting in the tow recepticle so I can go pick up the storm. More updates to come!

Please leave comments if this is a project that interests you, or if you have something in particular that you would like to address.