by pa_friendly_guy » Thu Sep 25, 2014 12:36 pm
It will cost you a bit over $10,000 to convert it to electric. A 9" DC motor is $1500, [ That gives you 25 HP } a Curtus Controller is $1500, { Curtus is the cheapest controller that will handle 500 amps , there are a lot of controllers that are better ] the pot is maybe $150, a DC to DC converter is about $200 [ that acts like your alternator to charge up your 12 volt battery that runs your lights, turn signals, radio, etc ] and Lithium Batteries could be $6000 to $8000. You can look for used parts, the motors and controllers come up from time to time for maybe $800 . Take into account your time and the value of the car and I would say that the productions cars on the used market would be a better buy. A friend of mine has been buying Toyota Rav 4's from the early 2000's for about $25000. He has 4 of them now. The one he uses for his daily driver has 157000 electric miles on the original battery and he has had to buy one part, I think it was $30, that is the total problems he has had with the car. No oil changes, no tune up's, no problems of any kind. There were only about 300 of them sold by Toyota at that time so they as fairly rare. If you can buy a used Leaf, or one of the other used Electric cars for $12000 to $15000 I would say they are the better buy, their batteries are guaranteed for 10 years. If you have to pay $25000 to $30000 then I might consider a conversion unit with Lithium batteries. I would not go with Lead acid batteries because of the limited range. I do not think you will be happy with them. And I would go for at least 120 volts to 144 volts to get the power to go hi way speeds. You will not be happy with less power. You can buy a 72 volt conversion kit for about $5000, but it will not do what you want a car to do, you will not be happy with it. Just my opinion.
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