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.