Rant

Lately I have had an obsession with EV's or Electric Vehicles. I'm sure my wife is frustrated by it at times. But the more I learn the more aggravated I get. The cost to convert a standard Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) to an EV ranges from 9,000.00 to 15,000.00. This includes the cost of what is called the "donor vehicle". The donor vehicle is usually bought from someone because of severe mechanical failure of the engine. Well since the engine is going to be yanked by the new owner thats not a problem.But you have to be careful. A rusting eyesore piece of junk ICE will probably be an expensive rusting eyesore piece of junk EV. the body needs to be sound and all major components need to work (brakes, shocks, steering, ETC). But the reward is a vehicle that you can drive on a day to day basis, that costs less per mile to run than a ICE. The range on EV's can vary anywhere from 30 miles to 120 miles, depending on the size of your battery pack. 

To further add fuel to this obsession, last night I found the website of the governments results of the testing of cars by car manufacturers during the 90's. The GM EV-1 had a range of 220.7 miles at 45 mph. when you accelerated to 60 mph you dropped to 160.6 mile range. This is on a single charge. There is a standard test (SAE J1634) that the range was 140.3. The performance goal? it was only 60 miles. The ONLY thing that the EV-1 failed in was a ground clearance. the goal was 5.0 inches. the actual ground clearance was 4.3 inches. Oh, and all this was with a 440 lb payload. 40 lbs over the performance payload. So with a higher payload that they were supposed to have the GM EV-1 blew away every goal but 1. and why aren't we driving them? well that goes into the realm of conspiracy theories.  

The reason for my rant is because we could all be driving cleaner cars and companies could be producing them but we aren't. This is infuriating and frustrating. For the cost of a new car, someone can convert a car themselves (the hardest part is pulling out the old engine) and it will last years, costing least than 10 cents a mile to run (this includes replacing the entire battery pack every 3 years). or we could have manufacturers making these and actually helping costs go down. but we aren't and unless something drastic happens, we wont for years to come. Believe it or not, there was a time that there were more electric vehicles on the roads than there were internal combustion engines, but due to distance limitations, the ICE won, and the battery hasnt changed much in the past 200 years. So much for science.

Just a few wolfish thoughts.