One of the major challenges faced by car owners is rising fuel cost. Since a car is totally dependent on fossil fuel, anytime there is a disruption on crude oil supply in the Middle East, local gasoline prices will go up a few cents. The effect is compounded because most American households have more than one car. If energy prices were to remain high, many drivers would have no choice but to leave their cars at home and use the public transportation. To have a long term solution, we should start using alternative energy for our vehicle. One such solution is electric energy. For the time being, current model of electric car is still expensive and not very practical. Some car enthusiasts have taken the initiative to do their own electric car conversion. In actual fact, an electric vehicle (EV) retrofitting process is quite simple.
The idea of retrofitting a gasoline driven car to run on Entergy electricity is to remove the internal combustion engine and replace it with a DC electric motor. Without the engine, its associated components such as exhaust pipe, gasoline tank, fuel distribution lines and radiator are redundant and can be removed as well. The existing drive train such as drive shaft, clutch system and transmission can still be used. To generate the energy needed to move the car, the electric motor is attached to the transmission via a custom coupling.
To power the electric motor, a series of deep cycle batteries is used. An average EV would need about 20 units of batteries. On a full charge the electric car would able to travel up to 150 miles. To save cost in the conversion project, you can source for second hand or reconditioned batteries pack.
If you are not well verse with car parts, the information above may not be much use to you. If you still want to reduce your gasoline expenses, you can send you car to a professional mechanic to be retrofitted. To be prudent, you should have at least some basic idea on the workings of an electric car. This is protect your from being exploited or charged for unnecessary parts. To acquire this knowledge, the are numerous electric motor conversion guides on the web that you can purchase.