Electric Car
My Saturn has at most, another 8 years in it, probably closer to 5. This means I could take on an electric car conversion after the Earthship and have plenty of time.
The base concept is simple (and the devil in the details). Buy a car whose engine is shot but frame is in good shape. Rip out the engine and put in an electric motor. Have the motor interface with the transmission (skipping a few dozen important details) and you're done.
As a hypothetical, a classic Beetle had a 50hp engine. A 50hp electric motor goes for roughly $350 on eBay. I should be able to get a Beetle with a decent frame for under $1k, batteries for another $1k, chalk up another $1k for parts and finally, $1k for tools. I've got a working electric car and the tools to keep it running for <$5k.
- http://www.hybridcars.com/decision-process/top-7-issues-electric-car-conversion-25839.html
- lead-acid is best
- manual transmission is best
- http://www.diyelectriccar.com/forums/showthread.php/flooded-ni-cad-22981.html
- Seems to indicate flooded ni-cad works well, but requires diligence (I can do that)
- http://jerryrig.com/convert/step1.html
- And his second build http://www.evconvert.com/eve/
I need to do some maths and find how many AH I need.
Kit Option
Some kit cars come very bare bones (no engine/transmission) it may be worth while to look at these. Particularly nice is that I may be able to get away with no transmission, I just have match motor power and rpm to drive axle rpms.