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Where to go from here? See who has already converted your favorite vehicle to an EV in the EV Photo Album.
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This is a 1971 Volkswagen Karmann Ghia that I converted to electric
power in 1994. Although electric vehicles, (EVs) were very popular in the early 1900s, since that time people have realized that the only way to have a freeway capable EV is to build it themselves. This is usually done by converting a gas car to electric. When I started building this car, I had never even seen an EV before, so I didn't know what to expect. The first thing that impressed me was of course the completely silent and smooth operation. The second thing was the perfect reliability and very low
level of maintenance. In
it's first version, it was running at 120 Volts, and had performance
similar to a stock Karmann Ghia. Then I met John Wayland. One of his cars, Blue Meanie,
can be seen in the picture above, directly behind the Ghia. John
introduced me to the world of high performance EVs. He put me behind
the wheel of Blue Meanie, a Datsun 1200, and I'll never forget what it was like to be
pushed back deep into the seat under the pull of huge amounts of
smooth and always available Torque! That was with 156 Volts and high amperage, delivered by an Auburn Scientific Kodiac controller. I was instantly hooked on the high
performance, and immediately started planning upgrades to my car.
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The upgrades included a change of battery type to the sealed, zero maintenance Optima Yellowtops seen above, and the pack voltage was increased to 192 Volts. A high torque, high voltage motor was installed. The xp-1227 is the most efficient, and most torque/amp motor made by Advanced DC. And finally, to handle the high voltage, an Auburn Scientific Grizzly controller was installed. These changes instantly quadrupled the power of the car, taking it into a whole new realm of electric powered excitement. A fantastic side benefit of the upgrades, were that the car actually got more efficient! Power consumption as low as 109 Wh/Mi was measured and the cost of the electricity became as low as a half cent per mile. All this in a car that can lay 30 feet of rubber and compete on the drag strip.
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