[ausev] hi im a newbie here with a question(s) for mark farver....

[Christopher Robison]

On Mon, 2007-02-19 at 20:58 -0600, nick blackhall wrote:
> is half the fun.  you mention that many evs, are sold for less than
> the sum of their parts. does that mean that any kind of resale value
> goes away?  it is unlikely that i would sell the truck, but in the
> event that i did, i would certainly atleast like to get mu money back
> out of it.   

It seems to be the usual case that a converted EV sells for
substantially less money than was spent to create it. I think in general
this is because of the difficulty in evaluating the quality and
longevity of a conversion. With the normal used-car market, you're only
concerned with determining how well the previous owner treated the car,
and there are standard things to look for, and companies that you can
hire to look for these things for you.

A custom-converted car brings a whole list of new things to be concerned
about, such as weld quality, maintainability (is that bolt head behind a
corner where I can't reach it without removing a rack of batteries?),
weight distribution and handling, wiring, etc.  I think it's because of
this uncertainty that it's hard to command a high price for a completed
conversion unless you're in the business of building them and can build
a reputation of quality over time.

> p.s. any idea when the open garage might be, im very interested in
> attending and checking everything out.

Although my project is a bit unusual, I would like to start doing open
garage sessions again now that the weather is improving. Right now I'm
just doing planning (for current status see http://ohmbre.org) but
pretty soon I'll be dragging the tools out again.

  --chris