What can you guys tell me about owning an electric vehicle..

[Mtrain]

I was giving it some consideration as I thought it might not be a bad idea.

I'm not talking about one of the new vehicles that are out now like the Nissan Leaf, but one of the Ranger EV's from the late 90's.

Looks like the range is about 60 miles depending on what batteries, and how fast you drive it.

From the electricity used to charge it, based on a full charge is approx 21kw at 60 miles.

So, around here electricity cost approx .08 per KW. If I'm correct that would be $1.69 per full charge. Which would be around $14 a week IF you used the full charge each day. {and, if I'm adding this correctly.}

How long do the batteries last in everyday use?
Any hidden issues?

[beechkid]

Hi Mtrain!

The benfits are pretty commonly known, but there are other issues with them....

1. Inherient hazards- The batteries in these cars get hot while charging & the oems have "bladders" filled with chemicals to ensure they stay at an appropriate temperature. Almost all of these products are reactive to oil, etc and although the baladders are suppose to be unbreachable, well, most public safety agencies today consider them "rolling hazardous material events" and in the potential threat (including electricution because of the high voltages), hazardous material teams are part of the standard response to accidents involving these vehicles.....and yeah, any type of release from your car is a haz-mat event and you (insurance company) are likely to be billed as such for the response, clean-up.

The batterias- most are "disposible" meaning when their time is up they go to a haz-mat dump...and yes you pay for that too.

Operationally, there are other issues, such as with the Prius- during transition from gas to electric & back, there are no braking support systems working for 5 up to 15 seconds.....this was an exemption specially approved by the feds during the Bush jr era....and interms of repairs, parts are expensive...up to 20% more in comparison to other similar vehicles that are conventional power plants. Parking....the building codes are behind in this but there will be retroactive requirements coming....in general, electric, propane, LPG vehicles will be prohibited from parking in enclosed structures (commercial) unless the structures have upgraded electrical (sealed) and enhanced ventillation systems because of the exposure to flammable gases/liquid vapors and the potential ignition sources.

This is just a quick summary off the top of my head....

[Mtrain]

Wow, good advise.

I just found out a bit more, if you use Ion batteries they cost around 7k, and I'm awaiting an answer as to how long they last, but I'm gonna guess at 5 years.

[JohnnyK]

I don't know (I wouldn't mind trying a newer one!) but I can be pretty confident that buying an EV from the late 90's isn't a sound choice!

[TheDude]

Originally Posted by JohnnyK

I don't know (I wouldn't mind trying a newer one!) but I can be pretty confident that buying an EV from the late 90's isn't a sound choice!

Even though I really don't know any practical aspects of owning an electric vehicle, owning one from the 90's doesn't seem to make much sense. I'm sure the technology is very different from what is being used today, so why step backward when the technology is going forward?

Of course, we're all here because we enjoy owning cars from the 1960's.

[datac]

The technology has changed, but (just like with our cars) that doesn't mean you can't find some advantages with the old tech. Ranger EVs were either lead-acid or NiMH. Lead-acid have a much lower energy density, but they're (relatively) dirt cheap, reliable, and simple to work with. Sounds like a fun project.

Quite a few years back I built a frankenstein of a folding electric scooter that I commuted to work with for years- no $$ for parking, I'd just fold it up and stuff it under my desk at work. I designed a custom billet rear wheel that let me bolt up an NOS Sturmey-Archer AW and overvolted it by 50%, so I had an underdrive, overdrive, and a terrifying 30mph cruise on 10" tires. Bucketloads of fun.

[gjz30075]

A friend of my brother had an old converted VW Golf, strictly electric. He commuted 40 miles round trip each day for many years and had zero issues. His heat, in the winter, were the cables!

From what I understand, there is a whole community of people devoted to converting older vehicles for this use. You might be able to find one of these vehicles for pretty cheap.

[Mtrain]

I think its more of the batteries changing as far as the technology goes.

As for the "why" of buying a late 90's EV, like someone else said, why buy a vintage Mustang?

The older, factory, EV's were well designed, and the basic chassis design is, well, what you find on most cars today. The motor is a basic electric design that has been around a long time.

So like I mentioned, the batteries are the biggest change in these things {not the only, but the biggest}. Also, the older EV's cost $52,720.00 new, and now the average price I have seen is around 10k to 20k with the 20k vehicles just sitting, not selling.

So price-wise the older EVs are much more of a bargain vs buying a new EV.

The biggest hit on these things price-wise is the cost of the batteries. Like I mentioned above the price of ION is around 7K at approx 5 years, which isn't cost effective for me.

However lead/acid batteries are quite a bit cheaper, but don't have a linear power discharge, weights twice as much as the ion counterparts, and has less charging cycles before they go bad.

So I don't really know, if it would be worth buying one of these or not. I would certainly rather buy a factory built EV rather than building my own as the building time considerations would just be too big for me right now.

[datac]

I've got an uncle with an unrestored 1910 Baker Electric that he drives around town on occasion up in WA. Dirt simple to work on, decent range, and a kick to drive.

[Mtrain]

Originally Posted by datac

I've got an uncle with an unrestored 1910 Baker Electric that he drives around town on occasion up in WA. Dirt simple to work on, decent range, and a kick to drive.

What kind of batteries does he use, and how often does he have to replace them?

Thanks.

[beechkid]

Originally Posted by datac

The technology has changed, but (just like with our cars) that doesn't mean you can't find some advantages with the old tech. Ranger EVs were either lead-acid or NiMH. Lead-acid have a much lower energy density, but they're (relatively) dirt cheap, reliable, and simple to work with. Sounds like a fun project.

Quite a few years back I built a frankenstein of a folding electric scooter that I commuted to work with for years- no $$ for parking, I'd just fold it up and stuff it under my desk at work. I designed a custom billet rear wheel that let me bolt up an NOS Sturmey-Archer AW and overvolted it by 50%, so I had an underdrive, overdrive, and a terrifying 30mph cruise on 10" tires. Bucketloads of fun.

Now thats what i like- taking knowledge, skills & abilities and making something that is really functional & serves a practical purpose (I really am impressed)!

[beechkid]

Originally Posted by datac

I've got an uncle with an unrestored 1910 Baker Electric that he drives around town on occasion up in WA. Dirt simple to work on, decent range, and a kick to drive.

I remember seeing one of those years ago & the owner gave me a "tour" of the car......the engineering was right on even for today......incredible vehicle!

[datac]

Originally Posted by Mtrain

What kind of batteries does he use, and how often does he have to replace them?

Thanks.

He pulled the originals (glass cased, IIRC) and runs plain old lead-acid deep cycles. He's obviously not putting a mountain of cycles on them so they've held up for years. Lead-acid deteriorates pretty gradually, but you can delay sulfation by keeping them charged and (supposedly) using a proper charging profile.

I ran lead-acid in my scooter, basically emergency lighting batteries. I looked several times at swapping them for Li-Ion or NiMh, but the high cost of those made it impossible to pencil out. In very heavy full-discharge usage I got 2-3 years out of a $90 array before seeing degradation. If I needed a 100mi range I'd have had no alternative, but it was a tool designed for a specific use. If I needed to drop 2k on batteries I'd have just paid for parking.

[Mtrain]

Thanks guys.

Here is what I've figured out, {I know I'm kinda going slow}.

IF gas prices stayed fixed {snicker, chuckle}, and you spent $50 for gas a week to drive to work {maybe a small Honda Civic} that would work out to $13 in five years vs the $7k for the batteries, plus the $14 a week for charging which would equal out to $3640 for a total of $10,460.

So you wouldn't save but $2540 with electric over gas. But if you could charge part time with a solar cell on your roof, that might help a bit, even more if you worked 3rd shift {night/graveyard shift} as you could charge your EV all day while you slept.

Also, I was thinking you might could make a bed lid with a solar cell made into it, which would charge your vehicle while it was sitting in the parking lot while you worked.

One thing that I found amazing was the weight of a Ranger EV {standard cab, reg bed} which was 4,700lbs. I know the batteries are heavy, but geeze a base Ford Ranger of that year with a 4 cyl weighs only around 2,600 lbs {standard cab, reg bed}

[datac]

Batteries weigh a ton, and gasoline has spectacular energy density. I'm a big fan of photovoltaics, got a bunch of them, but there is no way that they'll even begin to pencil out if you're bottom line is cost vs. gasoline.

Gas is cheap, electricity ain't free, and if you're trying to choose between the two it better be something besides economics that leads you to electric. Do it because it's interesting, do it because it's fun, do it for the engineering challenge, do it because you can come close enough to breaking even to justify your gearhead geekiness, but in a world where you can buy a car for $1.5k that'll run fine for a year or two there's no way to rationalize it through your budget.