According to a Missouri local news station, a high school senior converted his 1994 Geo Metro into an electric car by pulling out the gas engine and replacing it with an electric forklift engine he bought on eBay for around $200.
See immizen.com for a photo of the kid and his car.
Gibson spent $3,000 total in his electric car but said that if he were to do it again, he could do it for $2000. Add to that the price of a 1994 Geo Metro, which is probably around $1500 (see one from 1996 being sold at Ebay), you get an electric car for $3,500.
A bargain price without counting the fuel savings. For this Geo electric car, the charging costs are about 25 cents, and according to the article a charge allows him to drive the 16 miles to and back from school. Doing the math here, that is equivalent to spending $0.016 or 1.5 cents per mile. Or as the article states, he is getting an equivalent of around 200 miles per gallon compared to a gas engine.
The big question is, why don’t we see more of these cars on the streets? Why don’t we see a mass production of affordable electric cars?
We all know the answer, but it is important to state the truth as it is: The Oil industry would not allow it, car companies that focus on more immediately profitable enterprises would not allow it.
We have a bright high school student who was able to make this electric car for about $3,500. GM sells them for $31,000. They could do it much cheaper, but they are in the business of selling gasoline powered cars and electric cars are only sideline business affair to comply with government requirements after the bailout. I remember I recently attended a car show in Miami and was especially interested in seeing electric and hybrid cars. They placed those cars in a remote corner of one of the halls that had no direct people-traffic coming through there and the space around it was the least attractive and decorated. It looked like someone had parked them there temporarily until they found a better place. If anyone tells me that car companies want to sell electric cars, I tell them it is BS. Except for pure electric car companies like Tesla, they want to keep producing and selling those gas guzzlers and there is a reason for that.
Just watch the “Who Killed The Electric Car?” documentary or read about it in Wikipedia.
Cross-posted at immizen.com