I believe many people do agree that are many benefits to owning an electric vehicle (EV) compared to a gasoline driven car. Back in mid 2008, global crude oil prices reached its peak at $150/barrel. A lot of car owners were having a tough time trying to cope with the sudden rise in energy expense bill. Some industrialists were trying to push for the application of electric vehicle on the roads. Unfortunately, without economy of scale, a brand new EV is from the manufacturer is still relatively expensive to own. The next best alternative is to convert our existing vehicle to run on electric power.
An electric car retrofitting process is not really complicated. The idea is to remove the internal combustion engine and replace it with an electric motor. For the idea of a homemade electric car to be practical, the conversion project cost must be kept to a minimum. Apart from the cost of the electric motor, the second largest investment in an EV retrofitting is the batteries.
An average electric car would require 10 to 15 units of batteries. Buying all new batteries will definitely burst your budget. Alternatively, some EV conversion books have suggested to source for used batteries of electric golf carts. Getting the golf carts batteries from the service mechanic will require some people skill. By using second hand batteries, it can reduce your budget considerably.
If you think about it, there is a reason why someone would part with a set of good batteries. Most probably, the batteries are dead! A dead battery is not really dead per se, it can be brought back to live if you know how to. How to you recondition and dead battery? I will leave that question on another blog post.
