ECOS - Electric Cars Of Springfield will convert your car to electric for $13,000. Takes them about a week, though its about 12 weeks out if you were to schedule it now.
They also offer a turn-key sports car that commands Tesla type prices, but if you just want to get from point a to point b their conversion is quite the deal.
Perhaps instead of crushing the good clunkers that were traded in, the government could have had them all converted to electric.
The engineers take the Volt through some durability testing on their potholes course.
Why not just go for a cruise through the metro Detroit area, you'll hit potholes all day long.
I read about the Prius UPS project probably a year or so ago and had some email correspondence with the brains behind the operation, Richard Factor. He decided to use his Prius as a backup power source, just as you would a backup generator when the lights go out. What I find most interesting is that this further substantiates that the DIY often leads what eventually gets produced by manufacturers. It will continue as more information becomes available online, and people research the subjects related to what they want to build. The old email archives like gm_ecm provided collaboration and exchanging of ideas. Some of them electrical engineers talked about how to build circuitry to utilize the wideband oxygen sensors that were found in “lean burn” Honda Civics from California to use in race cars and performance applications. Now several entire companies that employee hundreds and thousands of workers have been the result of such projects.
prius ups wiring
I find it fascinating to see things where people hack and build what they think would be cool. When I was young I remember opening a christmas present on christmas eve only to have taken it apart less than 24 hours after opening it. I had to know how it worked, and since then I’ve always been fascinated by projects or hobbies that exist in basements and garages.
I also wrote about the chocolate powered race car where its becoming a very effective way for corporations to do product development. The schools provide an atmosphere in which students are challenged to come up with unique ideas. Not only do they become familiar with how the companies operate and incorporate new technology but they potentially make good relationships with potential employers.
I just wrote a blog post about the Tesla Roadster and how I believe they should do something about it lacking sound. In writing that I thought back to one of the first really influential car sounds that I heard, the startup of a 928 Porsche. I can’t remember my exact age but probably around 10 years old, but what I do remember is the fondness I felt for that unique sound. Here is a clip I quickly found on Youtube that demonstrates the sound:
What made it cool was that it was different, and that I loved everything about that car so the sound was one thing I would always be able to recognize in an instant. It was this same sound that I heard in the movie Risky Business when Tom Cruise took his dads Porsche and had the famous line:
Miles: Joel, you wanna know something? Every now and then say, “What the fuck.” “What the fuck” gives you freedom. Freedom brings opportunity. Opportunity makes your future.
That line is classic, in the way that Joel had everything to lose from the path his parents provided for college, his future in law, and still he chose to listen to Miles. So they took the car out and after that moment he was truly free. He was free to experience the Porsche and what it felt like to be behind the wheel of success and everything his father had worked for, but more than that it was a definition of his character. In the end he was able to demonstrate a way to create a business out of complete chaos, and know success in a way that cannot be taught in school.
Back to car sounds, but forward to my years in high school when I’d go down to Telegraph Road in Michigan and watch the drag races. We’d all get together in the parking lot along Telegraph and watch it all go down. Its really where my fascination with turbo cars began, specifically the Buick Grand National. This thing was a total sleeper, blacked out Regal that looked like a grandma car would roll up and smoke a 911. So I basically went from being infatuated by the Porsche to being completed amazed by this thing that sounded like an airplane take off from a light and just go.
The sound of an engine spooling a turbo and then seeing the result was just too much and I had to find out what the heck was powering that thing. I could go on and talk about the company I founded called Detroit Turbo, and for years kept traveling down the rabbit hole or perhaps my wife might call it the money hole aka pit.
In my quests I realized that my purpose was in fueling this passion, not because I wanted to self indulge in the building of a race car or in the selling of performance parts to build such a car, but because of the people I’d met. The people who helped me get off the ground when I started because they once started down a similar path. It was overwhelming just talking over the phone about a passion for cars that I wanted to keep doing it. I wanted to do it so this industry would keep itself together for the next generations because I’ve yet to find one that carries such a desire to help the new guy.
I can appreciate the advancements made in electric vehicles, and all that they may do for the enviornment, but I haven’t found that feature or that one distinctive element that I can identify it with. So until one is developed an electric car to me, is a golf cart, a smartcar, and any other similarly powered vehicles.
Here’s a little sample of that turbo spool I mentioned, the infamous Hoover Syclone:
