I know this topic comes up time and again, but I've not see a recent discussion. And, thought I could frame this with some specifics I have in mind.
I currently have a pretty functional home-built EV (Lectric Leopard) and a manufactured EV (iMiev) that I'm pretty happy with. I drive the Leopard (with lithium I put in last year), but strive to have something a little more refined with a little more power. I could buy a Leaf, but it's actually too homogenized in look and feel for me, and I like the idea of doing a home-built conversion from scratch. I'd like to keep the cost around $20k (to be done over a year or so), not counting my time. I'd like to have: 50-mile winter range (75 summer) small car, but with 4-seats good acceleration (10 sec 0-60) donor with decent parts availability, and perhaps unique/interesting I actually have a Renault LeCar that I rescued for a new conversion and/or parts for the current Leopard. It's in ok shape for a 30+ year old car, but it has a bit of rust, and probably a host of non-EV related issues I'd have to resolve if I convert it, but I have it and it was cheap. My default plan was to restore it a bit, put in an AC-51 motor/controller from HPEVS, 144v worth of 100 ah CALB CA cells, and the standard charger, DC-to DC, etc. to put it all together. But, wasn't sure I wanted to put all that good stuff in a potentially marginal donor car. SO ... the question is: If you were thinking about a project for a small car that could do these things with a good prognosis for success, what type of donor vehicle would you use? I think the first batch of typical donors (like the Volts-Rabbit / or my current Lectric Leopard) are probably getting a bit old and tired. So, I think something in the 2000 vintage give or take a few years of vehicles would be more prudent. I'm thinking about this like I think about cooking food: if I start with really good ingredients and use a moderate amount of planning, care, and patience in the process ... the results will be good. If the ingredients are bad, the best chef in the world can't make it good. Thanks for any input - Dan ----- Dan Gallagher http://www.evalbum.com/3854 -- View this message in context: http://electric-vehicle-discussion-list.413529.n4.nabble.com/Best-Donor-Car-for-2014-tp4666363.html Sent from the Electric Vehicle Discussion List mailing list archive at Nabble.com. _______________________________________________ UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org For EV drag racing discussion, please use NEDRA (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NEDRA)
