Build vs. Buy

A good question during planning is do go the distance and build it or just buy one from the lot. There are not too many stock EVs and they are mostly Neighborhood EVs with a top speed of 25mph. Here are some of the options.

Available now:

• Miles Electric (http://www.milesev.com/) ZX40ST for about $18,400
• Zenn (http://www.zenncars.com/) $17,635
• Ebay $12,000 and up
• GEM (http://www.gemcar.com/) starting at $6,795
• custom build $25K-$35K

Soon to be available:

• Think (http://www.think.no/)
• Chevy Volt (http://www.chevrolet.com/electriccar/)
• Subaru R1e (http://www.drive.subaru.com/Win06_HEV.htm)

Tax credits and rebates

The Qualified Electric Vehicle Tax Credit (Form 8834) which expired in 2007 was for 10% of the vehicles cost up to $4K. This was replaced by the Alternative Motor Vehicle Credit (Form 8911) for hybrid and natural gas cars. There are no electric vehicles listed and no apparent place for EV or NG conversion vehicles.

http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/tax_ev.shtml
http://www.irs.gov/newsroom/article/0,,id=157632,00.html

MPG vs. KWH/Mile

Do Electric Vehicles really save energy and/or energy costs?

Let's do some math.

• ICE: With a 19.8 MPG US fleet average at $3 /gallon for gas, that is 6.6 miles per $ or $.15/mile.
• EV: At 3 miles/kwh average at $.10 / kwh, that is 30 miles per $ or $.033/mile.

Even with conservative numbers for gasoline and electricity, the cost of driving an EV is 22% of the cost of an ICE.

Additionally, a kwh has 3413 BTU so at 3 miles/kwh that's 1,137 BTU/mile. A gallon of gasoline has 114,100 BTU so that is 5,757 BTU /mile. Again, EV is about 20% of ICE.

http://www.google.org/recharge/index.html

http://avt.inl.gov/pdf/fsev/costs.pdf

EV Conversion, Why?

To begin it is important to ask why. Why do an electric vehicle conversion? Why are electric vehicles important? To what end will an EV conversion bring us?

So, I'll start with some basic stats.

• 83,607 K barrels/day - World Petroleum Consumption (2005)
• 20,802 K barrels/day - US Petroleum Consumption (2005)
• 9,159 K barrels/day - US Finished Motor Gasoline (2005)
• 13,714 K barrels/day - US Total Petroleum Import (2005)

http://www.eia.doe.gov/basics/quickoil.html

So, the US consumes about 24% of the worlds petroleum. About 45% of that is for motor gasoline. And about 65% is imported. About 3000 K barrels/day or 23% from Canada and Mexico.