7 3/8 x 9 1/4 T echnical / Build Your Own Electric Vehicle / Leitman / 373-2 / Chapter 4
C h a p t e r 4 : T h e B e s t E l e c t r i c Ve h i c l e f o r Yo u
Figure 4-5 Bradley GT II kit car electric vehicle.
someone handle the entire conversion for you, you can convert to an electric vehicle for a very attractive price compared to buying a new EV.
Converting Existing Vans While large vans, such as Sacramento Municipal Utility District’s (SMUD’s) converted GMC van (shown in Figure 4-6), make great test-bed vehicles for the utility companies, they are heavy, more expensive to buy, take longer to convert, give less than adequate after-conversion performance, and cost you more to own and operate. For these reasons and others, you will never find an 8,000-lb. van recommended in this book as a potential conversion candidate. On the other hand, minivans—particularly the newer, lighter models—offer intriguing prospects for conversion, and you can look further into them as your needs require. But vans in general, even minivans, are usually more expensive, heavier, or take longer to convert than other chassis styles, so investigate before you invest.
Some Conversion Examples
There are a ton of vehicles that are immediately available for car conversions and it would triple the pages in this book to cover them all. We’ll just look (for eye candy) at an electric Rolls Royce, but the principle is simple: you can convert an existing car to something new! Figure 4-7 shows Paul Little’s custom-built electric Rolls Royce with a standard (Centurion) body. The vehicle uses a 2,000-amp controller that moves this ship effortlessly around town or on the open road. He even keeps all of the amenities like power brakes, power windows, video screen, automatic transmission, and air
81
