[ausev] Fwd: EV

[Christopher Robison]

On Tue, 2007-06-19 at 12:33 -0500, Alisa Evelyn wrote:
> Well, basically my plan is to drive an EV and charge it in my solar
> home.  I don’t need more than one car so I’m still debating on whether
> to convert the TT or sale it and use the proceeds to pay for the donor
> car and its conversion (hopefully to pay for the whole process or at
> least most of it).    I’m looking for a conversion that can be driven
> on the highway and has a range of at least 60 miles, may be closer to
> 75 would be better.  

Anything more than about 45-50 miles is going to be comparatively
difficult and expensive. 75 miles can be done, but you're looking at
either a very heavy vehicle, or using something other than lead-acid for
your batteries. How far do you commute each day?


> An older Benz or BMW could be nice but I’m not sure if that creates a
> weight issue.  Any way, I’m open to suggestions.

There are a few sites out there with data on used cars. One such site is
ConsumerGuide:

http://consumerguideauto.howstuffworks.com/consumer-guide-used-car-search.htm

(for example, a recent BMW 3-series) 
http://consumerguideauto.howstuffworks.com/1999-to-2005-bmw-3-series-4.htm

A vehicle starting at over 3000 pounds is not light, but definitely
doable.  I've read recently that many BMWs have performance-oriented
wheel alignment issues that would require modification for efficiency
and range.

If you want 75 miles of range and need to use lead-acid batteries to get
there, I would suggest starting with a compact pickup truck. You may
have to end up storing some of the batteries in a box in the bed.


-- 
Christopher Robison
chris at ohmbre.org
http://ohmbre.org          <-- 1999 Isuzu Hombre + Z2K + Warp13!