Chris Bergeron's Blog

One of my upcoming projects is going to be converting an old Ford Aspire to full plug-in electric. I’ve planned out the conversion and the costs, but the only tangible thing I’ve done is clean out the project car. I ripped out the rear seats to make room for the battery bank and I put down a layer of roofing flashing for sound dampening and to add some density to the body panels. When I was a kid I used to have radio-controlled electric cars and slot-racer style electric cars. Back then, I always wondered why the principles hadn’t been applied to real cars. Electric cars aren’t new, but they aren’t very prevalent. The goals of this conversion are to have a zero emissions vehicle that has decent horsepower and to save money (not purchasing gasoline). I haven’t calculated my return on investment for this project, but the project car has already paid for itself as a commuter car. I expect this conversion to pay for itself after a period of time; I’m just not sure how long that will be.

This should be a worthy project for several reasons:

• it doesn’t consume gasoline
• it will pay for itself over time
• it’s better for the environment
• my state offers nice incentives for alternative fuel vehicles; single-driver HOV lane travel being one of them

Here’s a picture of the project car and some of the [future] conversion materials:

Tags: electric car
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A few years ago, when gas prices were exorbitant, I started to build my own Ethanol Still. In light of the global energy crisis, I figured that being able to produce my own fuel was a useful endeavor. Creating ethanol fuel requires distilling corn (or other vegetables/fruits) and extracting its potential liquid energy. I did some research on the web and discovered the Charles 803 ethanol still. I bought plans and began building the still. Presently, I’ve put this project on hold. Perhaps one day I’ll complete it. Until then, here are some pictures of the project:

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