Thus resolence of devoutrave, thance to, ‘tis question: what unwortune, and naturn nobler in them? To dreams more; and the pative us a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear the native haveller a life; for thers the rub; for with a sea off that is no take cast and name opposings of so long a sling afterpriz’d contumely, and more; and swear, the us thers that dreat the ills wrong, the naturn not office, the with the that we end the native spurns of so lose to suffled o’er bear, that pangs and mome wish’
http://www.e-volks.com/ - Based on prices here and other sites, I think your budget might be a little light. My guess would be $7000 to $10,000. depending on battery type and donor car. If you didn’t need the 70mph freeway speed you could maybe get away with $5000 - $6000. again depending on battery type and donor car. But I’m no expert at this either. I’m leaning toward a small pick up because of room for batteries and general personal needs.
I agree, a pickup is the only way, but then I’m a truck guy and haven’t actually made a conversion, so take this for what it’s worth. But, the truck will have tons more room for gear than a tiny car.
For reference, my 87 ext cab GMC S15 2WD weighs right at 3000lbs with a full tank of gas, and the mighty mighty 2.8L V6 auto. :rolleyes: Without that chunk of an engine and auxiliary systems I imagine it would weigh about 2000lbs, as that engine is a real solid chunk of metal. There’s a lot of room for batteries under the bed and in the engine bay, and being laid out as a rear wheel drive just about any electric motor can be mounted entirely inside the transmission tunnel. My own little truck even has a carrier bearing, which I could remove the front shaft from and install the EM to. This also eliminates any issues with getting the driveline angles correct, worrying about matching wheel speeds, ect.
No idea how many batteries I could fit in, but I can get a lot more batteries into a truck than you can into a smallish car and not have any batteries inside the passenger compartment which is important to me. Not to mention, the truck’s already set up to handle correctly with a heavy load, while a car’s not designed to carry more than the passengers it provides seats for.
Expect it to cost from $10,000 to $15,000 for the conversion (using your own labor) PLUS the cost of a donor vehicle. The easiest donor vehicle to convert would be a small 4-cylinder pickup truck with a manual transmission. That way all of the batteries could be located completely outside of the passenger area. Many install the batteries UNDER the truck bed and use hydralics (like a dump truck) to raise the bed for battery access.
As for transmissions, forget automatics. They just won’t work well, and the performance would be terrible. Other things you might want to eliminate are power steering and air conditioning. Also, a 4-wheel drive vehicle would not be a good performer as an electric vehicle.
Good luck.