Driving Sports

This is part 1 of a three-part series

It's hard to find anyone these days who isn't interested in alternative energy and automobile designs that reduce or eliminate dependence on fossil fuels. That's a good trend, and it's long overdue. Nowhere is it carved in stone that gasoline is the only energy source that can get us where we're going, except maybe in Iran or Saudi Arabia.

That's why every automaker on planet Earth is scrambling to build the next killer powerplant that will run on sunshine and emit nothing but clean air and water out the back. This is also a good trend, because when people put their minds to it, they tend to come up with new ideas that substantially improve our quality of life. Places like Beijing, London, and Los Angeles will be better places to live when there are good choices for individual transportation that do not include petroleum products.

But the facts about battery electric vehicles (BEVs) are not generally well-known outside of the technology enthusiast community. Battery-powered vehicles have been in existence since the 19th century, and were once mass-produced (in numbers appropriate to the time) in the early decades of the 20th century. Detroit Electric began manufacturing battery-powered electric cars in 1907, and continued through 1939. Those cars got about 80 reliable miles in range, and occasionally up to 200 miles - which for its day was not unusual for any car.

BEV technology enthusiasts have been making electric cars as long as there have been cars to make. This technology is very well understood, but its limitations have prevented widespread adoption of these vehicles.

The limitations of a traditional BEV are threefold - range, weight, and cost. The range of a car on traditional wet cells has not extended very far since Detroit Electric was in business, and for automakers who must equip a new model with all the required safety and comfort equipment of a modern car, the range has actually been reduced. Another drawback is weight – lead-acid batteries are heavy and you need a lot of them, making effective conversions problematic. Finally, there's the issue of cost. You can add over $10,000 to the purchase price of your donor vehicle before you take your first electrified trip around the block.

But I was still thrilled when my brother-in-law Fred Weber (a computer chip designer by training) announced his intention to convert a 1978 Volkswagen bus to electric operation and asked if I would help with the conversion. He didn't have to ask me twice.

Tune in tomorrow for part 2 of the story to find out how we made the conversion from VW's self-basting fart factory to squeaky clean and super-groovy electric power.