If you are a science/green nerd and care nothing about cars and the driving experience, disregard our comments on this article. If you like driving cars or care about your safety while driving, you might want to read on.
I was checking out this article on the Examiner, yet another way to “easily” and “cheaply” have an electric car. They compare the price of doing this to the price of buying a car like the Chevy Volt. These articles bug me, and I’ll let you know why.
It’s not safe, nor is it good for the car!
Converting a regular car to an electric car messes with the weight distribution of the vehicle. The battery packs and electric motors are heavy and placing them in an existing car that wasn’t made to hold them kills the handling of the vehicle. It also can disturb the braking system. Most cheap cars already do not have great brakes. Those not-so great brakes are rated for a certain amount of weight. Adding weight to the car can be dangerous, or at least wear the brakes much faster.
Cars like the Volt and the Leaf are dedicated cars that are built from the ground up to handle the weight and storage of the battery packs and electric motors. Thus, you still have trunk space, you still get good handling, and you get a warranty. Yes, it’s more expensive, but it’s much safer.
DALLAS (Jan. 31, 2011) – Electric car conversions have largely been a novelty for the rich because of lowcost and abundant gasoline. Now, all that is changing. The ability to convert an existing gasoline car to an electric car with a kit has become cheap and easy when compared to costs of new ones from today’s automakers.
Continue reading on Examiner.com:
