dafiltafish

Now before someone says "electric cars are bad and you should feel bad", I remind you to take a look at the Tesla model S. go on... I'll wait...

that out of your system? good.

Now. I believe that a single man (or woman) and their tools can create a vehicle capable of running rings around a 5.0 mustang from a Honda, I truly do. But as we have come to learn about 4 cylinder engines is that they have their limits. sure you can create something insane like an LS civic and thunder around town, middle finger in full view, laughing at everyone. That is acceptable behavior for someone who puts in the effort to make a car worthy of thor, but that never really sat well with me... after all, it is just a corvette with a civic facade.

What if you didn't want to mask a super-car's guts behind an eco-car's body? what if you made it more economical as well as making it insanely fast?

Enter the conversion. there are hundreds of conversions out there (usually those damned geo metros), but they can barely keep up with a nissan leaf. in order to actually improve the car's performance as well as the image of electric and economy cars, we need to make a Frankenstein.

Shopping around for motors, I came across some fairly high output ones for only a couple hundred bucks, combine this with the necessary hardware and you can make an electric car. buy a 70kw motor and watch the tires smoke.

put a generator on it and you got yourself a hybrid of the most insane caliber.

Now what amazed me after several search queries were the lack of any performance electrics or hybrids being cooked up.

are Honda just not good for this kind of thing? is using a home generator not legal? Am I crazy for even bringing this up?

hondamark35

I mean, maybe...

there is a lot I could say here. instead I'll ask some more questions.

what is the cost of this sort of set up? in a cost comparison, how would this stack up against a more traditional swap or build project with similar performance characteristics?

what would the real-world energy efficiency be?

can a home generator provide enough amperage to maintain the charge for a powerful traction motor?

how much of the math have you done so far?

dafiltafish

-None.

Cost- I have seen geos done for under $800, seems like a fairly simple operation.

Efficiency- Probably crap, it is more for putting a lot of power to the ground as cheaply as possible. as well as the 'wow factor' for having an actually fast EV.

Home Generators- this is the part that no one seems to have any answers. Logically, if a generator can power a fridge, TV, a few computers, and a ton of lightbulbs, it would stand to reason that it could charge a few batteries.

I am more just curios if anyone else has tried an electric conversion with a honda. it seems like a great idea as hondas are usually pretty lightweight and based off some of the hardware I found, can take a huge motor.

I am not in the market for starting a project like this, it is just theoretical.

hondamark35

were these $800 Geo conversions what you consider "powerful?" most decent kits I've looked at were more like a few grand. these weren't bolt in kits either. lots of fabrication and assembly required.

the generators can keep several appliances going, sure. but without knowing the power demands of an EV conversion bringing it up is a bit pointless. It's like saying "I can row a boat across the lake without stopping; i wouldn't need an outboard engine to pull a water skier."

Find out what sort of power consumption demands the typical EV conversion would have, then find a portable generator that can keep up with that and then look at the price of that generator...

I think a lot of these conversions are done on cars that aren't worth repairing when the original gasoline engine is toast. I don't think that's often the case with the typical light weight honda. it's very easy and cost effective to bolt in a better engine or even just rebuild for $300-600 and keep on going for several more years. when a Geo metro tosses a rod who would want to put in the effort to do a complicated swap or rebuild an engine that was never that good to start with? at that point the EV conversion becomes a tempting option for those who are capable.

I like theoretical discussions. let's continue it with more facts and figures.

Freemananana

iTrader: (3)

You're wrong about the Geo thing. There are actually quite a few people who are really passionate about Geos, Metros in particular. I recently bought one myself and joined a couple forums. They have a strong following and the motors are very efficient. 40 MPG out of a 4 cylinder automatic is amazing (that's my mileage btw). I've seen 50+ easily out of the 3 cylinder manuals. A lot of these people rebuild the motors with OEM parts and put hundreds of thousands of miles on them.

Anyways, onto the EV aspect of this whole thing. I have seen several EV conversions. The batteries are heavy and expensive. Not to mention it is not a bolt in affair. I believe it probably falls into that realm of "if you have to ask, don't do it." Check out this thread:

http://geometroforum.com/topic/4902390/1/?x=90#new

I've talked to that guy before. I can't remember how much it cost, but around $10k is a good start.

hondamark35

awesome! something i'm happy to be wrong about.

grumblemarc

iTrader: (4)

WHat would be the benefit of doing one of these when Honda had high MPG cars out like the CX, VX and HX? And the Natural gas powered GX?

dafiltafish

Personally, I have a vendetta against hydrogen fuel cell cars, they are riddled with political intervention and in the U.S. have been used by oil companies as a way to seem a lot more environmentally friendly than they really are. But hey, that is just my opinion.

The reason is more of a "because I can" deal. It's a total experiment and if it is pulled off well, it would just be cool to see something rolling around that is largely uncharted territory.

Call me crazy, it was just something that was on my mind after seeing a particularly bad example of a Toyota Carola in the street in front of my house.