Low-cost DIY electric car made from recycled parts | Hacker News Reader

Low-cost DIY electric car made from recycled parts

designboom.com

173 pointsprostoalex58 comments

All you have to do is ignore all current safety and road-worthiness regulations, eliminate even the most basic of comforts like A/C and heat, and fill the vehicle with batteries of questionable safety and quality. When you’re finished you have a 2 seater with a longer range than a 5/7 seater that didn’t skimp on anything.

Honestly, this is no different than the guys that stuff V8s into Miatas on the cheap and get performance rivaling 100k sports card. We’ve been doing this with cars for a century now, why would anyone expect electrics to be different?

That was my first thought as well but to be fair he has plotted a pretty useful data point - several parameters on this beast are hitting the backstops and hence could be considered design constraints.

Personally speaking, I'm firmly in favour of this sort of thing. As well as data, it raises the profile of something that is pretty bloody boring to most people.

Our Makerspace shares space with a revolving group of people doing electric car conversions. They take cars that are already roadworthy (NZ requires a full road-worthiness test every 6-12 months) but maybe a sad engine. Rip out that engine, leave the transmission, gas tank, radiator etc. Bodge up a bracket to hold the electric motor and one to mate the engine with the transmission, some people wedge the transmission into 2nd and remove the gear stick. Find a spot for the power controller and hook it up, add a vacuum pump for the power steering/brakes. Now fill the empty spaces (in the engine compartment and where the gas tank was) with batteries .... drive it away ....

They start out roadworthy, and nothing that made them roadworthy is taken away. They go down and get retested after they're done. None of the passenger space has gone. AC isn't required here, we wind down our windows, I'll agree heat is an issue.

> They start out roadworthy, and nothing that made them roadworthy is taken away

They have a completely different weight distribution, which should require a complete suspension overhaul. The engine in a modern car is designed as part of the passenger safety crumple zone, so from end crash worthiness is changed. I could go on.

My original point though, was that this is at best a car with 25 year old safety standards being compared to one that meets today’s standards. It’s apples and oranges.

Batteries are not inherently road worthy, and a significant chunk of car 'battery' weight is all the systems that make it relatively safe to have an electric car. They are also introducing an unknown power line which could kill rescue workers who think it's safe to cut X, when it's not.

Don't get me wrong they could be doing this safely, but it's really easy to mess something up.

Where is this Makerspace? Sounds awesome.

Tesla should make their liquid cooled battery packs for the conversion market.

Of course their market cap dictates they can't go so low margin, but if the Tesla beast collapses (next market downturn?)... someone should be ready to jump in and convert their battery tech into these turnkey solutions for other manufacturers / converters.

We're in Dunedin, New Zealand - the Makerspace isn't the group that's doing the conversions, we share our space with a bunch of other groups that do things like electric car and bike conversions

https://valleyworkspace.org/

> turnkey solutions for other manufacturers

isn't this what the Gigafactory is for?

Avoiding a V8, the White Zombie is a Datsun 1200 converted into an EV dragster. It is the first street legal EV to turn a 10 second quarter.

http://www.plasmaboyracing.com/history.php

This is maybe the best thing I've seen so far this year. Thank you!

This video is worth a watch about White Zombie. Love how he deadpans the make of his car after dusting the Mustang.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apoeGMWF17c

the guys that stuff V8s into Miatas

Thank you for triggering me. I was sort-of shopping for a Datsun 240Z about 10 years ago and my heart broke seeing how many have been butchered into V8 drag monsters.

I hear this complaint about all manner of modified cars, but nobody wants to put their money where their mouth is. Those cars get built for the same reason you haven't bought one... It's expensive to own a classic car in good stock condition.

Ill accept and RB swap if the owner doesnt want the factort L engine. But no V8 please

I think you're right that they're making a dubious comparison. Even if the recycled car is "roadworthy", it's still a one-off made from ad-hoc parts and enormous amounts of expensive volunteer labor.

The larger point they're making, which they clearly didn't emphasize, is that there's tremendous value in re-use. I guess it was too irresistible for a bunch of recycling guys to boast about kicking Tesla's ass on a road test. No harm done.

How many people got into the Guinness book of world records for putting a V8 into their Miata?

Your pessimism is really appreciated by gas car makers.

If they had used something a bit lighter than a BMW 5 series like a VW Passat or a Golf it would have gone even further.

Edit: Ok, so now I'm doubting. I only see a driver seat in the video but underneath it says it has both a driver and passenger seat.

For how long. If the starting weight minus interior stuff plus batteries winds up significantly higher than OEM curb weight you're going to be eating wear parts much faster and putting control arms, etc at risk with every pothole.

Then again, most of these conversions live somewhere there are no potholes, bare steel doesn't rust, green energy is the cheapest way to get electricity and is otherwise not representative of the rest of the world.

x2. If you built a 1991 Toyota Tercel or Ford Escort with a 2017 power-train complaint with 1991 safety and emissions it'd get amazing fuel economy.

Everytime I read anything made from recycled parts, it reminds me of Frankenstein. Why bother with such creations?

Why build anything? Why design anything? Why do you write software or build new businesses? Why did you take apart electronics or computers as a kid? Why did you build something other than what was on the lego box?

Because the alternative would be not doing it?

Because we are at a time in history where we just pay the other guy to make a supposedly better product.

I'm looking to buy a new vechicle. I asked the Salesman about repair/maintance of the vechicles on the lot.

He said, "Oh--no one works on their cars anymore. It's what the service wing of the dealership is for."

He wasn't kidding. And there's customers sipping Starbucks, eating pastries, and watching movies in the lush waiting room. I thought, how can these people afford $175/HR. for a Service mechanic?

I didn't even question him. Even if I had a lot of disposable income, I'm not paying $175 hr(last I looked) to anyone to work on my vechicle.

(Guys have been building electric vechicles for the last twenty-thirty years. Twenty years ago my community college was offering a electric vechicle conversion course. It took the students from theory to a finished electric VW. Now--if you buy the right salvaged car; you can fool around with autonomous controls.).

175hr sounds like you're shopping for German cars or live in a coastal city full of people with more money than sense.

>Now--if you buy the right salvaged car; you can fool around with autonomous controls.).

One of the areas where OEM is far ahead of aftermarket is variable handling. Dynamic modification of shock valving, sway bar characteristics, spring rate, etc. based on body position, road quality, learned driving style, etc is something that hasn't yet hit the aftermarket but hopefully will soon now that GM SUVs with v8s and all the electronic bells and whistles to control those systems are readily available as salvage.

This looks like a death trap. Take out the engine that makes the front stable, as well as dashboard and airbags and put hundreds of pounds of batteries right behind the driver.

Handling is not an issue. What he did took a car and made it handle lie a crossover.

Ignoring the battery specific issues, he basically put the gas tank inside the passenger compartment. In no way is that a safe thing to do.

I still hope for a new version of the Baker Electric:

Jay Leno on electric cars:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRwEXaHTwsY

Except for the "steering wheel", the Baker seems the perfect suburban car for Texas cities, where you never know which streets will be flooded or when you'll run into a pothole.

Nothing to wait for. They're already extremely popular in China.

https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/2-People-Seats-New-Mi...

BTW the Indian car design, the Tata Airpod, runs on compressed air:

http://www.drivespark.com/four-wheelers/2017/tata-motors-air...

And for those who demand A/C, The passenger compartment could be cooled using depressurization of air, something electrical/gas storage can't so easily do.

Is any of this street legal in the US (presumably as a low speed vehicle)? Has anyone researched this? From a cursory look, you can drive low speed vehicles on streets with low speed limits unless prohibited by the local municipality.

A/C? Unsaleable in USA w/o A/C!

I want an autonomous Baker.

"lundgren hopes that if nothing else, ‘the powers that be’ within electronic corporations will notice ITAP’s effort and will feel motivated to start practicing what he calls ‘hybrid-recycling’."

Good luck with that. Regulatory issues, safety, insurance issues, quality control, and not to mention issues with sourcing and the cost of upfitting to electric means that there is never going to be a sizable market of "recycled" old cars converted to electric and resold as new.

There's a whole raft of vehicles out there that have had drivetrains and powerplants "upgraded," and AFAIK a lot of them are street legal. I have to think that the PtB quote is riffing on that idea.

Generally, from what I understand, street legal means that it still has the brakes it started with and the rollcage hasn't changed. Also it has seatbelts. You can pretty much do anything to a car after that.

Technically all welds have to be done by a certified welder.

Apparently the trick, if you are starting from scratch, is that you go to the engineer at the state troopers for your state who would approve the design before you start. Or you just start with a VIN'd frame and then you don't even really change anything. If the engineer doesn't seem down, try and find another. If you can't find one maybe you should move because you're not going to get it road leagal very easily otherwise.

Source: Looked up how to do it when taking a fab shop class at a tech college in WA last year. Asked the interent and the fab shop teacher (who had built several motorcycles from scratch).

Afaik, there's a big difference between "street legal built as a one-off" and "street legal as a production car for sale to the public."

The latter triggers and adds a whole other host of regulations.

Yes good point. I was talking about this article which is currently a one off. I believe even if they did this at a mass scale it's an aftermarket modification and is still legal.

The guy fills the back seat with batteries making this far from practical.

If we are just talking about electric things with 4 wheels doing highway speeds then: By 2005, several teams were handicapped by the South Australian speed limit of 110 km/h (68 mph), as well as the difficulties of support crews keeping up with 130 km/h (81 mph) race vehicles. It was generally agreed that the challenge of building a solar vehicle capable of crossing Australia at vehicular speeds had been met and exceeded. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Solar_Challenge

Notice how it stopped because it blew a fuse? This is a really cool project, but it's not a daily driver. And that's okay!

What isn't so okay is comparing it to those production cars that don't break down after a few hundred miles of use.

In order for him to prove this is a viable business model he has to prove that he can produce something people will actually buy at a price he makes a profit. Not just that you can throw a ton of batteries and electric motors in an old car.

"In order for him to prove this is a viable business model he has to prove that he can produce something people will actually buy at a price he makes a profit."

A higher standard than Hacker News has for Elon Musk.

That's true but Elon is shipping. Whether it is profitable at scale and with the UAW stirring the pot is the next question.

a prototype made from parts that can't be reliably sourced? - designing for ongoing manufacture and sale is a serious limiting parameter - without solving that, there's no business model

The Tesla Roadster with battery upgrade https://shop.teslamotors.com/products/roadster-3-0-upgrade is rated at 340m. This is probably a fairer comparison.

The DIY car posted here still wins on range, but by 12% versus Roadster instead of 38% versus Model S. It massively wins on price ($13K DYI BMW, not counting labor; versus ~$70K for a used Roadster + battery upgrade), and loses on safety. [The Roadster is not as safe as the Model S and hasn't been crash-tested, but is presumably safer than this thing.]

What's the life expectancy of 18650 cells found by cherry picking still working cells from dead battery packs? Ie. if you test them and find ones that seem good, will they last hundreds of cycles?

Haha there a couple of books in the 1990s that gave plans for how to do this, here's one I remember taking out of the library at the time:

https://www.amazon.com/Build-Your-Own-Electric-Vehicle/dp/08...

I seem to be conditioned towards mild skepticism because I saw that ITAP logo dropped in conveniently in a few places.

I am wondering whether the recycled batteries are cheap enough to deploy at grid level? If it does, then the biggest market is not EV as there is a lot of safety issues that they will need to consider but the ready and willing buyers are utilities.

The Beamer is a beauty! Totally overloaded with batteries and breaking down before emptying out.

I'd drive it.

So basically they got a car to go farther than a Tesla, by loading up the entire back seat of the car + more with just a whole bunch of batteries.

Yep totally safe.

Ha ha, I was thinking it's good he had a flame suit on with a mish mash of lithium batteries.

Cool story bro.

I'm grad you didn't spontaneously combust.

All they had to do was not spin the story as if this guy figured out something that tesla didnt. There are ample explanations in the comments above. It is a really cool diy project though, and i wish they had written about it as such.

On an unrelated note, i think that whenever a commenter reffers to other comments in general, they should always say "the comments above" instead of simply "other comments" as a way to be humble/polite. It would be a cool form of hn etiquette.

I dunno if I'd even call it a DIY project, tbh:

> lundgren and his team built the ‘phoenix’ in 35 days for just $13,000.

So a team of people spent 35 days building this thing - even if there's only three people on that team, and it's calendar days rather than business days, that's over $30k of labour.

I really hope people don't start doing this on their own.

Although I'd expect a lot of first responders now have equipment to handle a lithium fire, will the DIY'er in their own garage?

The design of the charging circuit for lithium cells is not as straight forward as NiMH, NiCAD or lead-acid. Load balancing is required. Using a hodgepodge of old cells only makes it more dangerous.

Not at all surprised the demise of the road test was an electrical fault while some cells still had a charge while others were possibly deep-discharged.

> I really hope people don't start doing this on their own.

People have been doing electro conversions of regular cars for many years. Popular conversions are Porsche 914, the Beetle and the Toyota MR2. There are companies that sell kits for many of these and others besides.

Most of them are quality wise a notch (or two) above what is shown in the article, but typically do not have as much range because of the more practical nature of their design. If you're willing to give up all the usable space in the car for batteries then probably you can get any one of those to that same range or even more.

http://germancarsforsaleblog.com/1975-porsche-914-electric-v...

http://www.evwest.com/catalog/index.php?cPath=40

> Most of them are quality wise a notch (or two) above what is shown in the article, but typically do not have as much range because of the more practical nature of their design

Then they are not doing "this".

I chose to use the word "hodgepodge" to show the recklessness of this design. Repurposing an assortment of used rechargeable lithium cells is not safe.

I really hope people don't start doing this on their own.

While I disagree with your overall sentiment, I don't think you deserve to be downvoted. As a former firefighter, I definitely appreciate that you make a legitimate point about the safety aspects of this. Have a corrective upvote on me.

And FWIW, while my time as a firefighter was quite some time ago, at that time, my department had a whopping total of one Metal-X extinguisher which rode on our primary engine. But at the time, we considered a class D fire something pretty damn exotic and unlikely to be encountered. Given the ubiquity of exotic materials in modern batteries, I am guessing these fires are more common and I hope most departments are somewhat better equipped (and trained) for dealing with them than we were in 1995.

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