My Visit to Electro Automotive

I am getting close to the point where I had to order the electric component kits from ElectroAutomotive, so they'll arrive around the same time the car is done at the body shop.

I had a meeting in Los Gatos in the south part of the Bay Area and EA's workshop is in nearby Felton, so I gave them a call to see if I could stop by to talk about the final details of my project and finalize the order.  Mike agreed, so after my meeting I headed over and found his place in a great hilly forested area a few miles from the ocean.

Mike showed me around his workshop, which was frankly spotless.  Operating room machine shop clean.  Shocking!  As we went through each big item in the kit, he showed me the part if he already had it in stock, and explained its history and pros and cons.  After we came to the decision on the DC kit, with 20 6V batteries targeting range over top speed, we deleted a few components that I already have to save a bit of money.  Mike's wife Shari then hit the spreadsheet and presented me with my grand total.  I agreed to arrange for an electronic check for half of the amount as soon as I got home, with the other half coming in about a month after I sold some stock.

They explained that the parts for the kit should all be ordered and received in about 6 weeks.  I will drive my pickup up to their place on a Saturday afternoon and we'll load up everything for the drive home.

I tried to take a picture to prove how clean the shop is, but the battery on my Droid gave out, sorry!

All in all it was a great visit with Mike and Shari, and now I'm committed to the kit and making the car a reality!

Well I'm Committed Now!

I've been thinking about doing an electric car conversion for about a year. My solar power system at home has got me thinking about the impact of energy generation and consumption. I found a half-converted car here in San Luis Obispo, but the owner finally decided to complete the project rather than sell it to me to finish.

I then started looking at Craigslist, car web sites and eBay for possible vehicles to do the project on. I focused in on the Porsche 914 as there are whole-conversion kits available, along with many people who have done the conversion before me and blogged every step of the way. I'm up for an adventure, but I want to make sure it's possible before I start!

I spotted a potential car on eBay near the end of September 2009. It was located about 3 hours away (close enough), silver (best color), working well as-is (drive it home, work on restoration issues before kicking off the conversion) and is a 1973 model with the improved transmission (have to keep that to bolt the electric motor onto). I contacted the owner and it appeared to be a great conversion project car. In the end I won the eBay auction, for $4550, plus $375 in tax later to the Great State of California.

The car was just as advertised, but as it is 36 years old, has several restoration issues that I need to fix: the horn, high beams, windshield wipers, blinker light, odometer, rear-view mirror, side-view mirrors, wonky shift linkage, several paint chips and rust spots, and a few rubber gasket issues. In the end, I made up a project spreadsheet with 53 electric conversion sub-tasks and 78 restoration sub-tasks. This will allow me to track time and money spent on each sub-task so I know how crazy this idea was when everything's complete!

I brought the car home on October 2, and the first thing I did was secure the radio in the dashboard - nothing like a bouncy radio and a rat's nest of wires. I've started my first foray into body repair by working on a couple of easy paint chips and rust spots. I hope to refine my technique on the more challenging spots. Luckily there is no body damage and only a few rust spots that have penetrated the metal, needing deeper intervention.

I plan to work on the restoration tasks first, which will get me through the end of 2009. Then when 2010 rolls in, I'll start on the electric conversion. There's a federal tax credit for electric conversions that gives a credit of 10% to a maximum of $4,000, so I want to spend all of those dollars in a single tax year. The credit expires on December 31, 2011 so I have another year in case things go horribly wrong.