Everything you need to know about the Rocket II Trike: one seat, three wheels, 1,000 horsepower from a supercharged Hemi engine. It was built by artist Tim “Frogman” Cotterill and the crazy crew at Blastolene.

You know you want to ride it.

Video: Jay Leno’s Garage / NBC. Sorry ’bout the lame ad.

The coolest thing about the electric motorcycle grand prix is anyone with a bit of skill and determination can make a run for the checkered flag. It doesn’t require a wad of money or bleeding-edge machinery, so even two guys working in their garage in Ohio have a shot at victory.

But they need a little help to get there.

John Wild and Sean Ewing are scrambling to finish their homebuilt electric motorcycle and get it shipped to California in time for the opening race of the TTXGP electric motorcycle grand prix season. The two guys, who call themselves Square Wave Racing, got together three months ago and they’ve built the SWR1 in record time.

Wild is a vintage motorcycle racer and a fabricator who’s built a few choppers. Ewing is an electrical engineer, entrepreneur and student at Ohio State University. They started with 1996 Honda CBR F3, which was a hot bike back in the day. It’s a bit long in the tooth now, but Wild says it was perfect for their application because it’s relatively nimble and it’s got a steel frame. That makes welding a snap.

They've got the bike and the skills, but they need some help getting to the race.

“We’ve only been working on this for a few weeks, so we had to start with a rolling chassis,” he said. “We didn’t have time to start from the wheels up.”

The guys swapped the engine for a three-phase AC motor and an 8-kilowatt-hour lithium-iron phosphate battery. That’s huge for a motorcycle, but Ewing says they want to be sure they’ve got the juice to complete the 25-mile race. They’re shooting for a range of 80 miles — around town, not on the track — and a top speed somewhere north of 100 mph. Breaking the century mark will be no small feat. The winner of last year’s TTXGP on the Isle of Man averaged 87.43 mph.

“With all the accelerating and braking, accelerating and braking, it will take a lot of energy,” Ewing says. “We’re confident the battery will last. The bikes that ran at the Isle of Man last year had about 3.5 kilowatt-hours. Perhaps we might have a bit of overkill.”

The guys are keeping mum on the bike’s performance and specs. Wild said making the SWR1 handle like a conventional motorcycle was a top priority, so there’s no regenerative braking. Motorcycles do most of their braking at the front wheel and Wild felt regen on the back wheel would throw off the braking feel and balance.

Wild says swapping the gasoline drivetrain for an electric one didn’t bring too big a weight penalty. They haven’t put the SWR1 on a scale, but Ewing guesses the bike weighs about 450 pounds. The ‘96 CBR weighed 405 without gas or fluids. Wild took the bike for its inaugural ride last weekend, then went for another spin Monday.

“It’s not much heavier than the gas motor,” he said of the electric drivetrain. “But it’s a little bit further forward. I’m working on a triple clamp to extend the fork and redistribute the weight a little better. It doesn’t feel any different under acceleration, but it feels a little top heavy under braking.”

All told, the guys have about $10,000 invested in the bike. They’re about to ship it to California for the inaugural race at Infineon Raceway May 15 and 16. They’re a little short of cash, so they’re seeking donations to raise $5,000 to finance the trip. The other races on the North American calendar are within driving distance of Ohio, but the guys couldn’t get the time off for a road trip to California. They’ve gotta fly everything to the race.

They’re pretty confident of their chances in the race once they get to Infineon, but they aren’t making any predictions.

“We’re definitely looking to finish the race,” Ewing said. “That’s the first priority. But we’re confident in our bike and we’ll do the best we can.”

Photos and video: Square Wave Racing. Want to contribute? Click here.

The SWR1 was built in a matter of weeks using a 1996 Honda CBR 600 F3 as the base. Although the bike is a bit long in the tooth, tech-wise, its steel frame made it a good candidate because it’s easy to weld.

The electric drivetrain wasn’t much heavier than the gasoline drivetrain, but it did move the weight forward a bit. The team is keeping mum on the bikes specs for now, so we can’t tell you much about the electric drivetrain.

It runs! Our dirt-cheap homemade electric Volkswagen runs!

At long last: For weeks I’ve been telling everyone I’ll test drive it this weekend, only to be sidelined by one problem or another. I was starting to get discouraged when Mark Clifford, who is building that electric Porsche 911 I told you about, came by the house to check my progress. He helped me solve a problem with the accelerator cable and then amazingly enough the thing worked.

As I silently pulled away from my house under electric power, weeks of discouragement turned to excitement when it dawned on me — this rust-bucket ‘67 Beetle that I have assembled myself actually works!

I only made a run through the neighborhood to test everything, but it felt great. I felt like Dr. Emmett Brown in Back to the Future when he discovers his time machine works by sending his dog into the future.

I spent the better part of an hour touring the neighborhood and showing off to my neighbors. Lots of people were out enjoying a warm spring afternoon. The sight of a Bug rolling silently — instead of clattering loudly — down the street sans hood or engine cover was definitely an attention-getter. A group of kids and their parents playing Frisbee in the street parted to let me through, pointing and staring all the while.

Wheeeeeeeeee!

“Nice job! You got it running!” one neighbor called out as I passed. It was followed by, “Sounds like you might have a problem. The engine isn’t running.”  He thought the engine had died.

“It’s electric,” I said as I came to a stop. That led to several minutes of explanation as everyone looked things over. It was the same story on every block as I toured the neighborhood. The test drive renewed the sense of excitement I had when I started this project back in October. My determination to get this baby fully functional mounted as I experienced the car’s surprisingly good performance.

I ran out of battery cable when I was wiring everything, so I had only 96 volts from eight 12-volt batteries instead of the 120 volts (10 batteries) I’ll have when the car is finished. But even with the diminished power, the car had excellent acceleration. I didn’t time it or anything, but my seat-of-the-pants feeling suggested it might be quicker than a gasoline-burning Beetle. It boogied quickly to 30 mph in second gear. I didn’t push it any harder than that, but the car felt like it had more to give.

The ride was understandably rough, but nothing worse than expected considering it’s a ‘67 Beetle hauling 500 pounds of batteries. It’s clear that I’ll need to either adjust the rear torsion springs or replace the shocks with coil-overs, but that can wait a bit longer. I was so excited to get going I forgot to check the odometer before taking off, so I don’t know how far I went.  I probably traveled two or three miles. The batteries had no noticeable charge depletion when I pulled the car back into the garage.

So what have I done since jury-rigging a repair to my rusty floorboards? Mostly I’ve been mounting the electrical components to the firewall, crimping lugs onto the huge 2/0 battery cable and wiring everything up.

I scored a great deal on a half-inch thick slab of surplus aircraft aluminum. I’ll use it as a heatsink and mounting plate for my motor controller. I was going to drill the holes myself, but questioned my accuracy with a hand drill, so I called up Spencer Stromberg of the Electric Car Company of Utah. Regular readers will remember Spencer as the guy whose Herculean efforts got my motor mounted. He fired up his CNC machine and it took an hour or so to drill and countersink all the holes. He even threaded some of them. Whatta guy.

I used another eighth-inch thick piece of aluminum to mount my pot-box, which is basically the throttle, and then started running what seemed like a few hundred feet of wiring to hook everything up. I still need to do some fine-tuning with the pot-box and accelerator cable, but it’s pretty good for a first try.

So my car runs. But it’s not done. There’s a long list of things to do. I’ve got to tidy up all that wiring and find permanent locations for a couple components. Both battery boxes still need to be permanently secured, and I need to re-wire the tail lights, which got toasted when the previous owner had a car fire. I also need to mount and wire my gauges. I just found a used battery charger for a great price from someone doing a conversion in Detroit. It should be shipped this weekend.

I also need to find a permanent solution to my rusty floorboards. I’m certainly more interested in function than form, but the rusty floor is more than a cosmetic problem. My temporary fix is just that: temporary. I got a ballpark quote for making the floors solid and it isn’t cheap. If it was only the floors, it wouldn’t be too bad. But I would have to replace the entire structure underneath where the doors close (the heater channels), and who knows where the rust would end once someone starts cutting. I will likely be able to find a different donor Bug in better shape for less money than the repair would cost. My electric drivetrain should easily swap into just about any Beetle if anyone out there’s got one in decent shape …

For now I’m focused on getting this one rolling. I’m learning a lot and it should hold together well enough to get me around for a while.

Wow … it runs.

Got any advice, suggestions or ideas for Matthew? Leads on a decent Bug for cheap? Share ‘em with us! Follow his progress on Twitter @Wired_EV and here at Wired.com. He’s also got a blog, evBeetle.com, to cover the conversion in microscopic detail.

Photos and video: Matthew Redd/Wired.com. Be sure to check out all Matt’s previous posts here.

There were many good reasons for choosing a 1967 VW Beetle for my EV conversion. It’s about as complex as a screen door, parts are easier to find than weed at a Phish concert, and the classic lines still look great after 43 years. There is, of course, a downside.

I have a 43-year-old car.

When I bought the car for a mere $500, I wasn’t familiar enough with old Bugs to know that rusted floor pans are a very common problem. I should have crawled under the car to have a look, but I was seduced by the relatively good condition of the body. It looked great. Well, except for the damage from the engine fire. And the rat’s nest of wires in the trunk. And the glovebox that wouldn’t close.

Come to think of it, I purchased a heap. It needs plenty of work beyond the conversion. But what all-original 43-year-old car doesn’t need work?

It isn’t all bad. The car does have a new front end, working brakes and a solid transmission. The rest of the drivetrain will be electric, installed by me, for next to nothing. So what if the car has a few cosmetic issues? I’ll get it running and eventually get around to restoring the body.

The horror. The horror. This is the view under my Bug. That gap opens when there's any weight in the driver's seat. It's about an inch, and more when I'm actually in the seat. That bubbly stuff is foam filler someone used in an attempt to fill holes in the floor.

That was the plan, anyway. But I was crawling around inside the car one day trying to pull the back seat out when I realized the entire driver’s side floorboard was flexing under my weight. I took a look under the car and my heart sank. The floor pans are in horrible shape, and the points at which they bolt to the car are completely rusted out.

This is not good.

Floor pan replacements are certainly common on bugs, and pans aren’t terribly expensive. But installing them is a bit beyond my skills and getting the job done is a bit too expensive for me. As I mentioned in my first post, my budget is tighter than a Bootsy Collins bass line. I’m in no position to spend a lot of money on this project, and going even a couple of hundred bucks over budget is unacceptable right now. And if I’m going to replace the pans, I really ought to remove the body. And if I’m removing the body, I really ought to take care of all the rust and fix anything else I’m sure to discover down there. Even if I had the time and money to open that Pandora’s box, I don’t have the transportation. I sold my car to finance this project.

Yet the pans are bad enough that I don’t dare sit in the driver’s seat. I’ve got to do something, even if I put off a proper fix until later.

I started searching for a temporary solution, something that might buy me a year or so. Realizing that the center tunnel and the door rails are solid, I considered supporting the floor with some sort of beam running the width of the car. It would be attached to solid metal and supported by the door rails and center tunnel, and it wouldn’t require drilling any new holes beyond a few in the floorboards, which will be replaced anyway.

I ran the idea past my friend Jamie, the same guy who hooked me up with those beautiful battery boxes. He thought it would work and brought me everything I needed to do the job — a unistrut, some all-thread, washers and locknuts. What a guy! Another friend joined me one recent Saturday morning to put everything together, using Jamie’s tools. It feels solid, the floor doesn’t flex, and I’m no longer afraid to sit in the driver’s seat. With any luck it’ll hold until I can afford to start restoring the body.

As far as the EV part of the job goes, I’ve started running the high-voltage cable and mounting the components that will make the car go. I hope to take at least a trip around the block this week. That leaves the battery charger…

Got any advice, suggestions or ideas for Matthew? How about leads on a charger? Share ‘em with us! Follow his progress on Twitter @Wired_EV and here at Wired.com every week. He’s also launched a blog, evBeetle.com, to cover the conversion in microscopic detail.

Photos: Matthew Redd/Wired.com. Be sure to check out all Matt’s previous posts here.

The interior beams are supported in the center by a metal strap bent over the center tunnel.

Two long bolts on each side of the center tunnel (4 total) go through the floor to support the beam on the bottom. The outside ends of the interior beams are supported by the door jamb.

The beam that is holding up my floor pans. Notice the rust and holes on the left side (driver side) where the floor pan should have solid attachment.

We love eco-modders and hypermilers because their singular pursuit of superlative fuel economy often results in innovative thinking and interesting vehicles. Like, say, this Honda streamliner. Not only did Allert Jacobs’ slick DIY fairing make a pedestrian Honda Innova motorcycle downright cool, it boosted the bike’s fuel economy to 214 mpg.

The Honda Innova is no slouch out of the box, returning 133 mpg from a 125cc engine producing a whopping 9 horsepower. But the Dutch “efficiency enthusiast,” as EcoModder calls him in its write-up, couldn’t leave well enough alone.

He’s put in a lot of miles on recumbent bicycles and knows a thing or two about aerodynamics, so the first thing he did was convert the Inova to a recumbent by moving the seat waaaay down on the bike’s step-through frame and moving the footpegs. That and a simple fairing boosted the bike’s top speed from 56 mph to 69 mph. Together with taller gearing, Jacobs raised his fuel economy to 156 mpg.

But why stop there? Jacobs spent several months designing and building the full fairing, which splits in two vertically just behind the windshield so he can get in. While it looks like you’d blow right over with a sneeze, Jacobs claims the bike is stable even in a 40-mph crosswind.

The bike’s record is 214 mpg, and Jacobs says it averages 199. But he’s not done yet. He’s shooting for 235 mpg — which for those using the metric system is 1 liter per 100 kilometers.

More info and pics at EcoModder, where one member is doing a similar mod with a Suzuki Burgman scooter.

Photo: Allert Jacobs via EcoModder.com

See Also:

• DIY ‘Boat Tail’ Gives Little Car Big Fuel Economy
• Hypermilers Push the Limits of Fuel Efficiency
• Basjoos Tells All About His “95 MPG” Aerocivic

I’m gathering the last of the parts needed to finish converting my ‘67 Beetle to electric power. I attended a meeting of the local EV interest group last week to ask some questions, get some recommendations and see what my fellow converters have done with their cars. You’d think this would have given me all kinds of motivation to finish my car, but I left feeling a bit depressed.

I’ve been happily engaged in building my electric Beetle for several months now, knowing all along that my puny budget might be half of what most people say is needed for a bare-bones conversion. Doing more with less, finding creative ways to solve problems, and getting a car rolling without spending a bundle has been exciting. So as I left the meeting, I struggled to put my finger on what was bothering me.

Then it hit me: This meeting of local converters damaged my confidence in pulling it off.

Don’t get me wrong — everyone at the Utah EV Interest Group has been universally helpful and full of information and suggestions. These guys are passionate about electric vehicles, and they really know what they’re doing. Many of them have backgrounds in auto repair or restoration and don’t cut corners. So although they offer excellent advice, heeding it often requires money I don’t have. I’ve started to wonder if I’m cutting too many corners.

That got me daydreaming about what I’d build if I had the money and could convert any car with any parts. I’ve always been partial to the Porsche 911. I’d put a really big motor in it and get a motor controller that could send it plenty of power. Of course, some would consider doing that to so great a car utter blasphemy or worse. Oh well.

Turns out I met someone at the meeting who is doing just that, and only a few miles from my house. After meeting Mark Clifford and arranging to check out each other’s projects, seeing his beautiful 911 didn’t do my depression any good. Neither did his experienced assessment of the rusting floor pans in my Beetle. But that’s another story.

Here’s what can be done if you have a substantially bigger budget than I do: Start with a $9,000 1981 Porsche 911 Targa in great condition with just over 100,000 on the odometer and a recent paint job. Remove and sell the engine for $3,000, redo the dash and seats for $1,800, then install a NetGain Warp 11 motor. It’s one of the biggest DC motors available for conversions, and it runs $3,000. Add one of the best motor controllers around, a Cafe Zilla Z1K ($2,000, used). Clifford is running a baker’s dozen 12-volt lead-acid AGM batteries (156-volt system) that a friend donated, but he hopes to swap them for lithium-ion down the line. He’s got another $5,000 in an upgraded clutch, motor adapter and miscellaneous parts.

Altogether, he’s into the project for $17,800 so far. That includes $11,800 in conversions, parts and components.

So what will the car do when it’s finished? There are all kinds of problems comparing EV performance to fossil-fuel performance. Ratings for electric motors are usually given for constant operation, not peak performance. No one seems to want to provide “max” statistics for a motor, which is somewhat understandable given the many different combinations of voltage and current at which it might be run. Still, EVSource has data showing the motor Clifford is using can produce an astounding 460 foot-pounds of torque at 1,400 amps. The Zilla Z1K will produce up to 1,000 amps of peak motor current.

Time for a quick back-of-the-envelope estimate.

The Zilla’s 1,000 amps at 156 volts generates 156 kilowatts. We should be careful about equating electrical power to mechanical power, but they will be in the same ballpark. So 156 kilowatts at 85 percent efficiency (average rated efficiency for the motor, although the motor is more efficient at lower loads) comes out to around 178 horsepower. Not bad at all, and with all that torque instantly available, it will be plenty snappy off the line. No one has done exact calculations, but with lithium-ion batteries the car could be capable of 60 to 100 miles of range. Li-ion isn’t in Clifford’s budget yet, but the lead-acid batteries provide around 30 miles depending on conditions.

Why would someone do this to a Porsche? Clifford says he’s always been interested in Porsches and going fast, and he has some experience restoring and working on other cars. Ironically, he says doing an EV conversion gave him an excuse to buy the 911. Turns out the green aspects of EVs initially appealed more to his wife, making the prospect of buying the car for a conversion an easier sell.

I still drool over Clifford’s Porsche, but my depression has passed. My conversion will be much more basic, but I’ll be reaching significant performance of a much different sort: overall cost. My total expenses? Around $3,500.

Coming up: I’ve installed a temporary solution to my rusted-out floor pans, and I hope to get the car around the block within the next couple weeks. Stay tuned.

Got any advice, suggestions or ideas for Matthew? Share ‘em with us! Follow his progress on Twitter @Wired_EV and here at Wired.com every week. He’s also launched a blog, evBeetle.com, to cover the conversion in microscopic detail.

Photos: Mark Clifford

UPDATE , 1 p.m. Eastern Jan. 26 : David Dymaxion is an electrical engineer and member of the Utah EV interest Group who is building his own electric Porsche 911. He sent a friendly email saying our back-of-the-envelope math is a bit optimistic because it doesn’t account for battery sag. His math works out like this:

On the horsepower calculation: Don’t forget battery sag. Let’s say Mark upgrades to Optima batteries with 0.003 Ohm (3 milliOhms) of internal resistance for each battery:

Vbatt = 12 V - IR = 12 V - (1,000 A) x (0.003 Ohm) = 9 V

So with 1000 A, each battery sags to about 9V: 13 batteries x 9V = 117 kW = 157 hp (no losses)

But you’ll have some losses (around 10+% electric plus about 15% drivetrain): 157 hp x 0.75 = 117 hp

While that seems low, don’t forget the torque curve is much fatter on an electric — Mark’s car will have about twice the torque of the gas engine he replaced, at low rpm. So in first gear he’ll accelerate like a car with about twice that horsepower.

Also, Mark could get a controller that outputs 2,000 Amps. The batteries would then sag to 6 V each, but his power would go to about 156 hp after losses. If he goes to lithium, with less sag, the number would go higher, plus the car would weigh much less.

So there you have it, from an electrical engineer. Thanks, David!

See Also:

• Building a DIY Charger for Our DIY EV
• Our DIY Electric Car Slowly Comes Together
• Take That, Murphy! Our DIY EV Finally Gets a Motor
• Our DIY Electric Car Gets Some Batteries
• Searching For a Motor To Drive Our DIY EV
• Our EV Conversion Gets A Curvaceous Body
• We’re Building an Electric Car!

Mark Clifford’s electric Porsche uses 13 lead-acid batteries and a Netgain Warp 11 motor. Some back-of-the-envelope math suggests the car is putting down 178 horsepower and around 400 pound-feet of torque.

More batteries. You need a lot of them when you’re using lead-acid. Clifford hopes to upgrade to lithium-ion at some point. That would give him a range of 60 to 100 miles.

Top-shelf components include the Netgain motor and Cafe Zilla motor controller. My shoestring budget means I can only dream of that kind of EV-porn.

Now that I’ve got the electric motor mounted in my 1967 VW Beetle, the conversion is picking up steam. I’ve got a used controller, and I’m ready to start mounting components. That leaves one key bit of equipment on the shopping list.

I picked up the Curis 1231C motor controller (pictured) on Tuesday from Kyle Danzie of ZEV Utah. He’s been an invaluable resource as I’ve been making the switch from gasoline to electricity.

The motor controller takes input from the accelerator pedal and translates it into an appropriate amount of power to send to the motor. It is a critical part of the car for both efficiency and performance. The controller is a used one, but it’s in good shape and a deal at $800. It’ll handle up to 144 volts and 500 amps, leaving me with enough headroom to add more batteries to the 10 I’ve got planned for now.

The batteries are in a tidy pile in my garage, so all I need now is a battery charger. Companies like Russco and Quick Charge make some decent chargers that are relatively affordable at $500 to $1,000. That may seem like a hefty chunk of change, but you can easily drop a grand or more on high-end units from Zivans and Manzanitas. Even five bills is a lot for me to lay out at this point.

I knew going into this project I’d need to get creative to keep to my drum-tight budget. I’ve caught a few breaks on used batteries and I got a sweetheart deal on a Mars electric motor. But I’ve got less than $500 left in the piggy bank and a lot of odds and ends to buy.

That’s got me thinking about a DIY charger.

I’ve heard of people building their own chargers and wondered how difficult, how safe and how expensive it might be. All a charger really does is apply direct current to a battery, right? How hard can it be? Building my own might get me rolling without breaking the budget.

I did a little digging and found some plans for a DIY charger. Doing it yourself is most tempting when your battery pack’s voltage is close to the 110 in your house. No problem — my Bug will be 120 volts. It’s a relatively simple matter to convert AC to DC with a bridge rectifier and a few other parts. I can achieve small voltage modification with an inductor to bump the 110 volts to the 130 or so that is optimal for charging. I was pleasantly surprised to see how easy and cheap this would be to do.

That information tucked away, the next step was consulting my brothers, and a nephew, who happen to be electrical engineers or at least experienced with such things. They confirmed my plan would work and even suggested it wouldn’t be hard to control the charger with a $30 open source programmable microcontroller. I figure I don’t have too much to lose, since I got my batteries for $5 apiece. If I’d dropped a few grand on batteries, I might be leery of subjecting such an investment to an experimental charger.

There are some downsides, however. The main benefit of manufactured chargers is the managed charge. Not only do they shut off by themselves when the batteries are full, but most of them also have a multiphase charge profile, which is better for battery health and maximum charge. I can accomplish similar results, but it will take a lot of time, research and testing to program the microcontroller and get everything right — and safe — and I need a charger soon. The best I can do without a microcontroller is to use one of those household wind-up timers to make sure the charger shuts off before causing trouble.

Another option is using 10 individual chargers, one for each of the batteries in my bug. You can get them for $20 to $30 each. Getting 10 of them would be cheaper than buying a pack charger. Going this route allows me to manage each battery individually, but the penalty is the sloooooooow recharge time. It could take as long as 30 hours to recharge a dead pack. That’s unacceptable for a car that will be a daily driver.

So here’s my plan: Start with a very simple dumb charger. I’ll put a GFI circuit breaker and basic timer in it and I’ll consult the experts in my family for safety tips. If I have money in the budget, I’ll also buy some individual chargers. The DIY charger can do the bulk charge, and the individual chargers will top off the batteries and keep them equalized. This should be good enough to get me rolling. Once I work out the kinks, I’ll work on a second version controlled with the microcontroller.

Got any advice, suggestions or ideas for Matthew? Share ‘em with us! Follow his progress on Twitter @Wired_EV and here at Wired.com every week. He’s also launched a blog, evBeetle.com, to cover the conversion in microscopic detail.

Photo: Matthew Redd / Wired.com

See Also:

• Our DIY Electric Car Slowly Comes Together
• Our DIY Electric Car Gets Batteries
• Our EV Conversion Gets A Curvaceous Body
• We’re Building an Electric Car!

I knew when I bought my ‘67 VW Beetle that I was starting two projects: An electric conversion and a restoration. Now that I’ve had the car in my garage awhile, I’ve discovered just how big a project the restoration is going to be.

With the electric motor mounted and the batteries in a neat pile in my garage, I’ve started going through the old Bug to see what’s what. The body’s in good shape for its age, but it certainly isn’t pristine. Aside from the fire damage in the engine bay, there’s a lot of rust. The underside’s pretty rusty, as are the insides of the fenders and the nooks and crannies of the engine compartment. The right rear fender is loose, and I’m not sure why. But the floor pans are the big issue. Replacing them will be near the top of the restoration to-do list. I hope the driver’s side pan will hold until I get around to the job. It flexes enough that the seat leans noticeably when I’m in it.

Rust issues aside, it’s been fun getting to know the car and its quirks.

Old-school Beetles are notorious for their lousy heating. The channels that carry heat from the engine compartment to the cabin are really long, and they tend to rust out and malfunction. At some point, the heating system in every Bug shoots craps. Fixing it isn’t tough, but a lot of people don’t bother. My father-in-law tell me he often had to scrape the inside of the windshield of his friend’s Beetle during ski trips in college. Knowing that, I’m not surprised to have found an ice scraper and dried-out anti-fog wipes in the back of my Bug.

I also found jury-rigged mismatched speakers behind the back seat, a disconnected electrical component of some kind in the front luggage compartment and plenty of neatly folded tissue and a dispenser. Perhaps the previous owner had allergies. Oh — and the latch on the glovebox is broken.

But the big issue was the roasted engine bay, the result of a fire. After cleaning the soot and charred insulation, I discovered more wiring was damaged than I originally thought. It looks like the main harness is damaged just after it emerges from the firewall. Luckily, the only wires I’ll need for the EV conversion are the for the taillights. I’ll be running new wires for everything else, so it shouldn’t be a problem.

Adding 700 pounds of batteries made the back end sag noticeably.

I removed the back seat in preparation for the batteries. In typical VW simplicity, two bolts hold the seat in place. There are two compartments under the seat, one on each side of the transmission hump. One of them holds the car’s 12-volt battery. A rail runs along the front edge of the two compartments, and it will be the perfect place to mount a battery rack once I get it built.

Even without the rack, the rail supported the Universal Batteries I’m using to power my car. I test fit 10 batteries to see how the Bug’s suspension would handle the 700-pound load. The back end dropped 1.75 inches. I expected more sag, but it’s still noticeable.

I’d planned to put all 10 batteries in the back of the car, but having all that weight at the rear could make for some interesting driving dynamics. Now I’m thinking of putting three batteries up front; they’ll fit since I’m dumping the gas tank. That will mean running a high-voltage line the entire length of the car, but the weight will be distributed more evenly.

While working on my own EV, I’ve been tooling around in a loaner to see what life with an electric car is like.

Kyle Dansie of ZEVUtah handed over his converted 1994 VW Golf a little more than a month ago. He’d heard that I’d sold my old Mazda 626 to raise money for my EV conversion and figured he’d loan me some wheels. I’ve been impressed by the car.

The e-Golf performs as good or better than the gasoline version at low speeds, and it has no trouble on the highway. Once I got used to the silence — just the whir of an electric motor and the hum of tires on pavement — and shifting a little differently, it was easy to forget I was driving an electric car. I spent less than 25 cents a day keeping it charged and I wasn’t polluting. Yes, the electricity came from a power plant that burns coal or natural gas, but it’s still cleaner and more efficient than internal combustion. I’ll get into that in more detail in an upcoming post.

When evaluating an EV of any kind — be it a DIY job like Kyle’s golf or a $109,000 Tesla Roadster — it all comes down to range. My daily commute is 10 miles each way, and the e-Golf offers about 40 miles depending upon conditions. On most days it was no problem: the car had plenty of juice to get me to work and back and run a few errands on the side. There is no way that everyone could start driving electrics today, but there are plenty of people of us out there that drive short enough distance in a day that the range problem disappears.

It can take from six to eight hours to charge the car when you plug it into a 110-volt line. I convinced the manager of the building where I work to let me plug it in, and I could top off the batteries in about two hours. People make a big deal of charge times, but for me charge time is all rolled up into range. As long as the car gets a full charge overnight, you’ll have the range you need for most uses.

To me, the benefits of an electric car far outweigh the occasional inconvenience of limited range.

Photos: Matthew Redd / Wired.com

See Also:

• Take That, Murphy! Our DIY EV Finally Gets a Motor
• Our DIY Electric Car Gets Some Batteries
• Searching For a Motor To Drive Our DIY EV
• Our EV Conversion Gets A Curvaceous Body
• We’re Building an Electric Car!

Putting all 10 batteries in the middle of the car made the back end sag and will probably throw the driving dynamics off, so I think I’ll install three in the front of the car.

The engine bay looks a lot better now that I’ve cleaned out all the soot and charred insulation. It’s a lot roomier, too, with a Mars Electric nine-inch motor instead of a four-cylinder engine. The right rear fender is loose, and for some reason the taillights are uneven.

Anyone who’s built an EV knows you spend a lot of time waiting for parts and they don’t always work out when you get them.

Such was the case with the adapter plate I need to bolt an electric motor to the transmission in my 1967 Volkswagen Beetle EV. I finally got it last week, but of course the mounting holes were the wrong size and in the wrong place. There’s a chance it can be modified to work, but the odds are I’ll be waiting another week or so for the right part.

At least I’ve picked out a motor and lined up a great deal on batteries.

Carl Clark of the Electric Car Company of Utah gave me a great price on the Mars ME0911 motor I mentioned in my last post. I’d been watching a used Advanced DC 9-inch motor on eBay that went for $810. That’s a great price, but by the time I paid for shipping it would have been about $100 more than the Mars. I’m a web developer, and Carl is letting me do some consulting work in partial trade for the motor. It’s a deal I can’t refuse.

The Mars ME0911 is the first large motor from Mars Electric in Milwaukee, and it’s built in China. I’m taking a bit of a chance since it’s untested in the conversion community. But the price is right, and Mars has a good reputation for its smaller motors, often used in motorcycle conversions. It also has the benefit of being bit larger — 10 inches — than the 9-inchers I was considering. I’m still trying to understand the numbers, but the Mars motor should have a little higher power, torque, and efficiency. It will take getting the motor in the car and the car running to make a full evaluation.

Jackpot!

But the big news is I’ve got a great deal on batteries. Many DIY EVs use batteries pulled from the uninterruptible power supplies data centers use for backup. Most of these places swap out their batteries after a few years, even if they’ve still got plenty of life left in them. I spread the word that I was looking for some and by brother hit a jackpot at the business park where he works.

Canyon Park Management in Orem, Utah had 33 batteries to get rid of. It offered them to me for 5 bucks apiece a long as I bought them all. They’re Universal Battery model UB121100 for those of you geeky enough to care. They’re 12 volt with a 110Ah rating, they’re sealed – no worrying about water levels – and weigh about 70 pounds apiece. They go for at least $170 new.

I got them all for $165, and then traded 18 to Brian Berrett of Wilderness EV for $360 worth of parts I’ll be needing shortly. Not bad I’d say.

Brian met me at the business park and brought along a battery tester. Turns out that most of the batteries were at 90 percent of their new capacity. Brian was nice to let me have all of the 90 percenters. He took the rest. I’ll use 10 for my 120-volt battery pack and likely use one more for 12-volt accessories. The rest I’ll keep as spares.

I know where most of my other parts are coming from, so once I get the motor mounted I hope for things to move more quickly. We’ve talked about my shoestring budget, but I have yet to write much about the cost of the various parts and my current estimate for the final price. Here is a list of parts that I have or that I have committed to:

So I’m in for about $2,630 so far. By trading some web development work for parts, looking around for deals on used parts and volunteering to be a guinea pig for an unproven motor, I’m saving close to $4,000. There’s still a couple of big-ticket items, the biggest of which is the battery charger. I’ll probably drop at least $600 if I buy a new one. I’m keeping an eye out for a used one.

Add it all up and you’re looking at what most EV builders will tell you is the low end to build your own highway-legal electric car. By the way, there are plenty of converted cars out there for sale under $10,000 at places like evfinder.com if you don’t want to do the conversion yourself.

But what’s the fun in that?

Got any advice, suggestions or ideas for Matthew? Share ‘em with us! Follow his progress on Twitter @Wired_EV and here at Wired.com every week. He’s also launched a blog, evBeetle.com, to cover the conversion in microscopic detail.

Photos: Matthew Redd / Wired.com. In the main photo, Matt and Brian Berrett of Wilderness EVs (on the left) test the cache of batteries Matt scored.

The Mars Electric motor that will make my Bug go.

See Also:

• We’re Building an Electric Car!
• Our EV Conversion Gets A Curvaceous Body
• Searching For a Motor To Drive Our DIY EV