Comment on A 2014 Ford electric with dead batteries is only worth 500$, even if you spent 20/30k on it
squashkin@wolfballs.com 2 years agoits best to usually not be a early adopter
pinephone has entered the chat (lol)
yeah I have been interested in the DIY EV route, basically just get batteries and hook them up to a motor system (there's more but that's the summary).
ICE (gas) vehicles are already bloated, EVs look bloated and probably will have trash proprietary software hooked up to them.
probably our main problem is we need major deregulation of car industry so more cars can be made by more companies.
there's also ICE DIY car kits you can build. all this costs more tho. ebikes are good for smaller distances.
also the OP brings up an interesting point, I guess EVs are kind of different, I mean some parts can be stolen off ICE vehicles and some gas. But with EVs people could steal batteries. idk if there is more of a theft issue. Instead of filling up a little gas like ICE cars, EVs are often basically like hauling tons of gas with them in a way (with all the batteries they bring).
Another route I'd consider is like a bigger e-velomobile (they're like cars you can pedal like a bicycle), like bigger or more car sized.
We'll figure out a way to navigate the coming mess
iamtanmay@wolfballs.com 2 years ago
There's regulations around chassis for safety reasons. You can build on top of existing chassis, but otherwise it won't be street legal
That said, DIY car.... its gonna look ugly... and its a crazy amount of work
I would rather buy an existing hybrid which uses a generic battery supplier, so I can replace it myself even if the manufacturer is gone.
Spotted_Lady@wolfballs.com 2 years ago
I've heard of folks 3D printing cars. That's only the body. The chassis is another matter.
iamtanmay@wolfballs.com 2 years ago
Maybe there would be a service where you could print large metal parts , but its a safety risk and a huge amount of work for most people who are not engineers.
It would be more mangeable to convert gas cars with a kit
Spotted_Lady@wolfballs.com 2 years ago
The application for making the body with 3D printing and piecing it together is if you want to duplicate an iconic, custom car.
squashkin@wolfballs.com 2 years ago
velomobiles, some diy EVs, car kits, I think these things are legal. Also maybe we can change the law. but yeah there are legal limitations to work through.
I like the hybrid idea too or a gas car for long trips (or rent one) and EV for shorter.
iamtanmay@wolfballs.com 2 years ago
Saw it on Top Gear, when they built their own EV car from scratch. They said only existing chassis are highway legal. Not sure what the car kits are, but the rest are probably classified as something else, like e-bikes, carts or something. Highway legal chassis require a lot of paperwork, crash testing and so on.
I also saw this girl on youtube who made a EV Pickup out of her Tesla. It was months of work with a team of technicians... its really hard
Rather than making your own car, it would be more practical to put together a replacement battery pack yourself. You can see Linus Tech Tips video on making packs for cameras... the car packs use the same cells, just in much higher quantities.
I wouldn't do it myself, because its still a lot of work for just 1 replacement pack. I would buy a generic one and adapt it to my car.
squashkin@wolfballs.com 2 years ago
yeah I think you're right, the div EVs are conversion kits from gas cars
the gas car kits are just standalone for gas, sounds basically like IKEA but for cars (assembling the parts yourself), I'm sure they're already approved: https://hiconsumption.com/best-complete-kit-cars/
from what I read, the diy conversion didn't sound too hard, it's just expensive for a lot of batteries. And you want to pick cars that are lighter which may reduce options. But I may have overlooked the difficulty involved.
https://www.diyelectriccar.com/forums/
yeah I was thinking it's probably those 18650 cells, in teh OP story I was wondering if they would be able to use some other battery and just convert the power using some kind of electronic device (?) - sounds possible