Electric Car Conversion?

Anon

How difficult/expensive would it be to convert a rwd import into an electric car with the motor(s) in the trunk? Would it be better to have the batteries closer to the motor or in the front where the engine would normally be? Would it be better to have an independent motor for each wheel or just one motor for both wheels? Is there any way to get a car like this to 120-140 mph? What would be the best car to try with as far as lightweight? I am obviously not a car guy, and this is just an idea for a project if it is possible to accomplish. This car would be built like a racer/drifter depending on what is possible.

Please no haters, this is just curiosity.
@dick car guy- What if the car was for short races, 1/4 mile or short drift courses. and the transport was mainly towed by trailer? Wouldn't it require less batteries and possibly offer longer battery life from less use?

Answer
well I was looking this up myself yesterday, and from what I read it's enough info to discourage me from wanting to convert unless my engine dies on me. What I picked up from research generally was a complete kit will cost anywhere between 4000-8000 dollars, u need countless hours of work or you can get someone to do the work for you for $3000, and mileage and speed is limited (around 50-100 miles on a full charge and up to 80 mph). Oh you also need your entire front engine bay and a good part of your trunk to house the bulky batteries used to power your vehicle.
I'm not trying to discourage you from going through with this conversion, I'm just letting you know it's not easy.
If you really want an electric car, I suggest you search around your area where someone is selling his/her already converted electric car. Although theres only a few out there, you're bound to find some. Good luck on your project!

Is it possible to buy a hybrid or electric conversion kit for a conventional gasoline engine car?

wow

I was thinking about buying a bmw 3 series sedan but the only thing holding me back is the fuel mileage it gets. I started looking into conversion kits that can turn a car into a hybrid or electric car. I couldn't find any specific kits so I don't know if the technology is out yet. Could someone please tell me if it is those kits are out there. Please list as much info as possible!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Thanks

Answer
If you are shopping BMW's, you are not worried about MPG. It doesn't just the MPG because if its a performance engine, you will be buying the highest octane gas by mandate of the maker, or else the engine pings to an early death which might the goal if you want to get a new engine.

Here is reality. Yes, you can put in an electric or hybrid engine, but it will have to be retrofit, as there is no such thing as plug and play on car engines, even from the same maker. So it will take a lot mechanical rigging and working to get it in the car, much less tuned and reliable. I would expect to pay a good mechanic four times what it would cost to replace the engine, with the idea that it could go up to eight times depending on what gets involved once he digs into it. So instead of $3k, you might want to have between $12-24k just for the conversion minus the price of the car.

Here is the other part and scary engineering that you will get into is where to put the battery bank, what kind of batteries will you buy. If you want good batteries, expect to chunk in another $20k. But it doesn't stop there, what about the braking system that generates some of the electricity of the hybrid? What about the computer system that operates the engine and dc motors? Get out your wallet for that too...

So once you get done, your near $60k in a conversion, minus the price of the car, you might not have it working. Just look at the common issues with electric cars http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AqWgEK1EFb2vwPcUKTPSW5h0.Bd.;_ylv=3?qid=20090610220941AAokgel

Why not just go buy a Prius as a donor and save yourself the engineering. Or better yet, just go buy a hybrid ready to roll with e-z financing?

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Movie title: A kid comes home from school to find a big red box with a door in it to another world.?

arose

I'm trying to find the name of a really bad 70's-80's movie. He goes through the door and to another "world" where he has to get through the "duldrums" and meets the "weather man". It is an educational movie.

PLEASE HELP!!

Answer
sounds like The Phantom Tollbooth. Never seen the movie, but the book is supposed to be much better. In the book he comes home & finds a large box with a toy/electric car big enough for him to sit in and a mock tollbooth. When he goes through, he finds himself in another land.

How can I make a homemade electric generator to power my house?

swaggerifi

I was thinking about buying used car batteries from the junk yard and connecting them with jumper cables then testing the connected batteries with a battery tester to see how many volts it has. I havent tried this yet so I dont know if it will work do you guys have any idea on how to make a generator so I wont have to pay for power

Answer
To make an electrical generator, you need to have a length of wound copper wire rotating inside a magnetic field (refer to elementary physics).

Gasoline/diesel/etc. generators run basically like your car's engine, but instead of turning wheels, it uses the motion to rotate the wire inside the magnetic field, producing electricity. Remember, energy can't be created or destroyed. The chemical potential energy in your combustible fuel is being converted to kinetic energy, which is being converted into electrical energy.

A wind turbine is more "free" in that you don't have to go out and buy drums of oil to make your electricity. But it works on the same principle, but in this case, it's the turbine blades catching the wind that spins the copper loop, creating electricity.

As far as your batteries go, you may be able to store it there, but to charge any battery, from AA to car, you need the correct circuit and voltage, or nothing will happen. So you probably can't use your batteries. But if you can, all that you an do is store the potential energy there, and use it at a later time.

But if you just want to play with making a generator, try this:

First, you need to choose the energy source that you want to convert into electricity. You can use a stationary bicycle, a water wheel, wind turbine, a bored child willing to do some menial work on a set of gears, or virtually anything else with a rotating axle. You do have to choose the source, because as I said - you can't get energy from nothing.

Take that copper wire that I talked about, and make that loop that I also talked about, but leave two ends free (you need that to form the electric circuit). The larger the number of turns in the loop, the more electricity you can generate for the same amount of rotation. Kind of like an electric pulley system, to use a bad analogy.

Take your loop, and connect it to your energy source. You need to be able to rotate the loop end-over-end, without twisting the two connecting wires about each other, because if they do, you'll get a short circuit, and boom, it's done. One way to successfully accomplish this is to connect one wire to the rotating axle and the other wire to a conducting "brush" that maintains contact with a second conductor.

Make sure that you've sufficiently supported the loop so that it's out of the way of any moving parts of the energy source (such as your legs and the pedals if you pay a seven year old to ride a bicycle that never goes anywhere - give them one of those hand-held video games, they'll never notice). To make sure that you get this right, you may need to reinforce your loop with plastic or another light (but sturdy) material.

Grab some magnets (permanent magnets), and arrange them around the loop so that the loop can rotate freely between them. Take care to ensure that you arrange the magnets to maximize the field strength. One good and simple method is to make the south end of one magnet face the north end of another.

Stick the two conductors on your energy source to a battery, circuit, chainsaw, whatever it is that you want to drive. Again, you need to keep your wires separate to avoid a short circuit, so you'll need to use some kind of brush mechanism again, or whatever more clever thing that you can come up with that I haven't considered.

Poke the kid and get him to start peddling, or release your turbine to the wind, whatever you want. The amount of energy that you get from your turbine will depend on the efficiency of its construction, materials used, and how much mechanical energy us put in to drive it and spin the turbine itself (a faster peddling kid will give you more electricity than a slower one).

Run with it. A home-built turbine is unlikely to provide your house with any really useful power, unless you've really taken some time, money, and thought into it (which is possible). But you might run some simple things from your standard knock-off generator, such as perhaps basement lighting, that kind of thing.

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