Meet the Revengers: people who have taken REVENGE for the electric car by converting a gas car, building their own EV, installing charging stations, or otherwise doing their part to generate and promote electric vehicles.

FEATURED REVENGER!

BENJAMIN NELSON: Oconomowoc, WI

Converted a motorcycle and a car with no previous EV conversion experience

Revenger

When I first saw "Who Killed the Electric Car?" I couldn’t help but cry a little. It was so sad to see not only all the wasted work that went into the EV-1 and other electric cars, but just how our culture is generally so wasteful and dependent on fossil fuels. Thus started my revenge.

I went to a summer energy fair and saw how easy it was to build an electric bicycle with a kit. A week later, I was cruising all over town on my E-bicycle instead of a car. Unfortunately, car drivers still gave me no respect, not realizing how fast I was riding on what looking like a grandma 10-speed. And pot holes weren’t fun with no suspension and the extra weight of the batteries... If only I had something that looked fast, had high visibility in traffic for safety, and had better suspension.

The next summer, I built my own electric motorcycle, using off-the-shelf parts, and painted it bright yellow to match the batteries. It had great acceleration and didn’t need mufflers! I even played around with building in some speakers to play various engine sound effects! My cycle could be as quite or loud as I wanted it to be. (I even had the George Jetson flying car sound effect loaded in there!) When winter hit, it meant I had to give up the EV motorcycle and go back to a gas car. But by then, I had the experience and confidence to convert a car to electric. Keep in mind that I never took an auto shop class in high school, and I had NO background in electronics, but I wasn’t going to let that stop me!

The following summer, I built my own electric car using salvaged and used parts, and an Open Source controller. With no experience and only $1300 total spent, I had my own electric car! I returned to the energy fair, this time as a presenter, teaching how ANYONE can build their own electric car. My presentation was the biggest single workshop at the biggest energy fair in the country!

Since then, I’ve given presentations all over on electric vehicle construction and have over 1.5 million views on my YouTube account, teaching from my driveway with a home camcorder. I’m a founding member of our local EV club, and routinely win prizes at car and motorcycle shows, usually in a category of all my own. My motorcycle has directly inspired no less than half a dozen people to build their own electric Kawasakis, Harleys, and Goldwings.

Folks have ordered hundreds of copies of my electric car and electric motorcycle instructional DVDs. I’m currently working on getting PV to charge my electric vehicles, and am using a salvaged UPS with my motorcycle to power my entire house in a blackout. I even once got a speeding ticket in my electric car, but that’s a different story.... Read more on my adventures in clean transportation on my blog! http://300mpg.org/


 

THE COMMUNITY OF BLOOMINGTON-NORMAL, IL: Bloomington-Normal, IL

A town prepares for EVs with charging stations and business initiatives

Revenger

EVTown represents a broad-based effort to establish Bloomington-Normal, Illinois as a model electric vehicle community. The effort is being driven by a coalition of business officials, government representatives, and other interested stakeholders who firmly believe electric vehicles offer tremendous benefits to individual vehicle owners, businesses, and the greater community.

EVTown aims to concisely provide members of the Bloomington-Normal community with all of the information needed to evaluate available electric vehicle technologies. In addition, EVTown is intended to connect interested persons with opportunities to personally view, test drive, and purchase electric vehicles.

The EVTown effort originated after Town of Normal Mayor Chris Koos brought together several representatives of business, government and education to discuss how our community could prepare for electric vehicles. As discussions evolved, it became apparent that there was a tremendous opportunity for Bloomington-Normal to become a national leader in electric vehicle deployment.

Electric vehicles can offer significant financial savings to residents and businesses in the community. The fact that these vehicles have zero emissions can help reduce pollutants in our local air. The EVTown effort can also help expand our community's reputation as a forward-thinking and progressive leader. This furthers our ability to attract and retain top quality employees and businesses, thus contributing to the expansion of our local economic base.

The cost of charging an EV is significantly less expensive than the equivalent cost of gasoline. Consider the following example from Ameren Illinois' recent EV assessment report filed with the Illinois Commerce Commission. A conventional vehicle getting 27.5 mpg and traveling 600 miles per month will cost the owner about $800 a year (assuming gasoline at $3.00/gallon). However, an Ameren customer would expect to pay between $60 to $160 (depending on the rate plan) in electric costs for the same distance.

Source: http://www.icc.illinois.gov/electricity/pev.aspx

Public charging stations being built in the town can be outfitted with payment acceptors that require a fee before charging can take place. However, there is an additional cost to adding this feature to the charging stations. Similarly, there is an added installation cost, as well as on-going maintenance fees associated with networking the charging stations to a communications system that supports payment collection. These extra costs are projected to far exceed the cost of providing free charging. As supply of EVs expand, it is expected that these public charging stations will eventually require an access fee.

The EVTown initiative is designed to prepare our community for the rapidly growing EV industry and to make our community more attractive to emerging businesses and their employees, thus strengthening our economic base. It will complement the many other environmental and sustainable initiatives already underway, and it will enhance economic opportunities and the quality of life for our residents.

 www.evtown.org


 

LUDOVICO BINDA: Milano, Italy

College student builds an electric BMX bike

Revenger

I took revenge by making an electric bike!  It’s a BMX powered by a 5 kw electric brushless motor originally intended for R/C aircraft.  I first fell in love with EVs after a ride on a Tesla, so I decided I needed something electric (but cheap!) too.

I took my brother’s old BMX, which was on its way to the trash, and completely rebuilt it and blessed it with electric power.  Despite a decent knowledge about electric power systems coming mainly from my previous project of a solar powered automatic aircraft (known as LUSA), I still had a lot to learn before building a truly useable electric vehicle, so I began to search the Internet, which has been my first source of information since it is the meeting point of a worldwide community of DIY electrical vehicle enthusiasts.

Discussing my project with people from all over the world, representing almost every possible combination of age, profession, ethnicity and so on, felt amazing and gave me a sense of connection with the changing world.  I was also surprised by the amount of extremely knowledgeable and skilled people, including a lot of retired engineers, who were extremely kind and willing to teach to a young person like me: this truly pleased me and made me feel like I “was on the right track” with this project.

I kept things rather simple in the conversion: power comes from a 24v 25 Ah lead acid battery and the customized motor is handled by a commercial ESC, but such simplicity hasn’t spoiled things at all, it just gave me more reliability.  The bike has LED headlights and a homemade on-board computer as a system status monitor with an LCD. In the city it copes with the traffic far better than anything else, being fast and agile, plus it has basically no access restrictions. Oh, and it is also much fun to drive :-)

I am currently developing my very own brushless motor controller in order to improve its performance and to be driving something that I built almost from scratch.  This project got me to know a small but fast growing world of start-up companies and ambitious projects, I got so motivated by all those people working hard on their dreams and beliefs that I started to develop some vehicle-related products with two college mates.

Having a home built vehicle is such a gigantic satisfaction that as soon as I’ll be done with college I’ll home-convert my gas-eater Mini to electric power!


 

RICHARD HARTY: Stockton, CA

First LEAF owner in the Stockton, CA area

Revenger

Years ago I was at a park with my family when I talked with a woman who owned an EV-1. I had no idea that electric cars were even available! And when she drove away making no sound at all, it clicked: electric cars made total sense.

I couldn't afford a new car at the time, but I knew that I wanted an electric car of my own. I began to follow any information on electric cars I could find and when I saw "Who Killed the Electric Car?" it made me so angry that it solidified my desire to own a plug in vehicle as soon as possible. I signed up for the Nissan LEAF newsletter and when they sent out the invitation to order a new LEAF I ordered one within seconds of getting the email.

I received the first LEAF in the Stockton area on January 11, 2011 and I love it. I was featured in a number of local newspapers and I have had strangers find me just to see the car they've heard about on the news.  Everyone who drives the car, including a local reporter, get one of their own once they feel how it drives.  A number of my friends and colleagues have ordered a LEAF simply after driving my car.  

My payment on the car is less than what I was paying for gas each month, so it makes so much sense.  I drive about 600 miles a month for about $10 in electricity.  Our family will not buy another car unless it has a plug in it.  I hope to see the death of the internal combustion engine as the primary source of locomotion within my lifetime. That will be the final revenge!