Monday, November 9, 2009

Let's get Rolling

I'm building an electric car out of a '67 VW Beetle, and blogging about it roughly once a week on the Autopia blog at Wired.com. There is so much more that goes in to the conversion that I decided to start my own personal blog to track developments in more detail and in a less formal, more timely way.

To get up to speed, check out my first two posts for Wired's Autopia blog:


I know the blog isn't much right now, but I don't have much time. So I went with something that I knew would be quick and easy (blogger) and I haven't even customized a template yet. There will be more to come...

Please comment or contact me if you have any suggestions.
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6 comments:

  1. JJNovember 10, 2009 at 6:08 AM

    Your project is very interesting because of the decisions you have made so far: moderate budget, DIY approach, popular model, easy, kit-based conversion. And because of your non-expert condition. Exactly what lots of people want to reproduce on their own.

    I'll keep reading through the process. How long do you think it'll take?

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  2. Matt ReddNovember 10, 2009 at 11:45 AM

    Anywhere from a few weeks to a few months. I figure I'll be tweaking the car for a long time to come (years?), but I hope to be rolling in a month or two. Mostly it will depend on being able to acquire the parts in a timely manner, which will depend both on availability and budget...

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  3. JJNovember 10, 2009 at 2:45 PM

    Quite possibly you'll tweak the car in the future. Electric cars are cars 2.0. They're "upgradeable". Selling old parts to install new ones will surely be part of the fun. Great to have cars "à la carte" (fully customized).

    Ideally one should be able to buy second hand parts or build some of them straight away. That'd save lots of money. But I wonder if that is out of my reach, being a beginner too, without technical knowledge. Anyway here we are some links. Can anyone tell if building a controller is too complicated for lay people?

    http://www.austinev.org/evtradinpost/index.php?method=showdetails&list=advertisement&rollid=3438&fromfromlist=classifiedscategory&fromfrommethod=showhtmllist&fromfromid=29

    http://www.austinev.org/evtradinpost/index.php?method=showdetails&list=advertisement&rollid=3259&fromfromlist=classifiedscategory&fromfrommethod=showhtmllist&fromfromid=29

    http://www.austinev.org/evtradinpost/pictures/listings/3259.jpg

    http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2009/06/open_source_ev_controller.html

    http://greencarvideos.blogspot.com/2009/01/144v-open-source-ev-controller.html

    http://www.diyelectriccar.com/forums/showthread.php/open-source-ev-motor-controllers-21170.html

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  4. weierj80November 14, 2009 at 10:55 AM

    This comment has been removed by the author.

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  5. weierj80November 14, 2009 at 10:56 AM

    I'm not sure if you've ran across this instructable, but a fellow her in WI went a similar route (albeit with a Geo). He's documented it pretty well, including videos of his many pitfalls in the conversion process. I only mention this as he is also an "average joe". Might be worth take a look at, and give you some ideas.

    www.instructables.com/id/Build_your_own_Electric_Car/

    Though I have not started or worked on an EV project yet, I have collected a large amount of data and links on the subject in my research the last couple years. Let me know if your interested and I'll post more.

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