Electric E30

[dude8383]

Thats pretty neat...but it can only go 30 miles!

I guess for "neighborhood" driving thats not bad!

[Kruzen]

6000$ conversion cost

He'd have to fillup nearly 150 times to recoup his costs at current gas prices.

Cool idea, not the best for 'cutting down on costs'

[RobertK]

Why did you install everything up front in the engine bay. You probably would have been better off installing the battery box in the trunk.

Also, I've read that 6v batteries work better that 12v lead acid for power and range. What made you decide on 12v dry cells?

[GaryE30]

That's pretty badass, especially with gas prices the way they are right now.

My dream is still to import a 324td, swap the engine into my car and run a turbo biodiesel.

Might want to reconsider... check out Julien's thread.

[MikeE30325i]

hhmmm, seems pretty interesting. but i would rather just spend the money ona conversion on gasoline itself, not have to do any work, and have an age old reliable fun car.

[mikeedler]

so, when is he going to drop it, and put some 17" kopis on it?
cool i guess-- if thats your thing.

[02tii]

Range: 30 Miles (48 Kilometers)

Wow after spending 7K on a conversion I'd want to be able to go for a bit of a drive. Doesn't seem worth it to me.

[Ben Carufel]

hhmmm, seems pretty interesting. but i would rather just spend the money ona conversion on gasoline itself, not have to do any work, and have an age old reliable fun car.

Yeah, see, when you're young, stupid, and selfish like yourself, it's not hard to think of "me me me" instead of "how can I help the environment a little"...

[Ben Carufel]

Why did you install everything up front in the engine bay. You probably would have been better off installing the battery box in the trunk.

Also, I've read that 6v batteries work better that 12v lead acid for power and range. What made you decide on 12v dry cells?

Apparently reading the thread is too much for you.

The car isn't owned by anyone in this thread, it was just posted by someone who came across it.

Additionally, if you click on one of the links in the first post you'll see photos that show the majority of the batteries in the trunk.

[ivo316]

Why did you install everything up front in the engine bay. You probably would have been better off installing the battery box in the trunk.

Also, I've read that 6v batteries work better that 12v lead acid for power and range. What made you decide on 12v dry cells?

First. I didn't build it, wish I had the cash for such a project, regarding the battery box, there are two of them, one at the front and one at the rear.

Regarding the batts you could contact the builder at

BTW, range can be increased by a) using more batteries (heavier car).
b) Using nicad Batts (laptop cells), that would seriously increase range, but also cost...
c) Use Ovonics Batteries, but the company was bought by GM and then sold to Shell and closed down.

They still own the Ovonics patents and are not going to make them ever.

[Kruzen]

Yeah, see, when you're young, stupid, and selfish like yourself, it's not hard to think of "me me me" instead of "how can I help the environment a little"...

Orrr instead of bashing on the dude for enjoying his car you could make a reccomendation that would be money more well spent, like converting the car to use bio-diesel or other green friendly emission projects that actually get mileage/power

[Ben Carufel]

Orrr instead of bashing on the dude for enjoying his car you could make a reccomendation that would be money more well spent, like converting the car to use bio-diesel or other green friendly emission projects that actually get mileage/power

There are plenty of things he can do to save money AND help the environment a little bit at the same time.

I'm not going to sit here and list them for him.

My point is that he missed the point of these cars; the owners didn't necessarily build them to save money, they did it to reduce their consumption of fossil fuels. To look at them and say "Yeah, cute, but it cost you $7k. I'd just use that $7k to buy gas!" is missing the point entirely.

[equate975]

Thats awesome!

If it were me though I want to build a bio-diesel car. Mainly because I have an unlimited supply of grease to use.

[AndrewBird]

That is setup really inefficiently actually. He ran the batteries in series to create a 144V system instead of running them in parallel and using a lower voltage battery. The way it is now, he has the capacity of only 1 battery instead of say, 12.

I've always wanted to do somehting like this with my MG. Max torque from 0 RPM FTMFW!

[AndrewBird]

Wow, after reading through that website, most of the information is from 10 years ago. He talks about NiMh batteries not being available to the public yet. WTF?

And as far as batteries go, can you say LiPo?