Chris Bergeron's Blog » electric car http://chrisbergeron.com My projects, rants and general info Wed, 25 Jan 2012 02:18:29 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3 Electric car project is stalled indefinitely http://chrisbergeron.com/2011/04/electric-car-is-sold/ http://chrisbergeron.com/2011/04/electric-car-is-sold/#comments Sat, 30 Apr 2011 21:40:14 +0000 Chris http://chrisbergeron.com/2011/04/electric-car-is-sold/ Sadly, I sold my electric car project Ford Aspire. At this time I don’t have the bandwidth to work on that project. Someday in the future I may renew my interest, but for now this project is indefinitely stalled. The car paid for itself and then some, so it wasn’t a loss financially but I’m still sad to see it go, particularly considering current fuel prices.

]]> http://chrisbergeron.com/2011/04/electric-car-is-sold/feed/ 0 Electric Car Project http://chrisbergeron.com/2009/06/electric-car-project/ http://chrisbergeron.com/2009/06/electric-car-project/#comments Wed, 24 Jun 2009 00:15:51 +0000 Chris http://chrisbergeron.com/?p=294 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:
The project car The electric motor The controller

]]> http://chrisbergeron.com/2009/06/electric-car-project/feed/ 2