Electric Vehicle Manufacturers

Many people awaited the day when a company would come forth and produce nothing but electric cars. Alas, we have had Tesla step forth and become a manufacturer of high-end EVs. They sure have made a splash. As of late EV sales figures have begun to drop, as Tesla and other EV manufacturers runs out of the early adopters. BMW, GM, Nissan and Kia (well, almost) all make EVs alongside Tesla, but none of them make very impressive vehicles, in fact, most are only emissions compliance vehicles. What most of us don't see is that there are several start-ups that are secretly working behind the scenes to get their share of the EV market.

 One such company, Jet Technologies, is creating an aerodynamically different car than any that has ever been produced and is supposed to be all electric (I was enlisted to come up with a power train and battery system for it, but backed out due to the owner not offering me any money, instead I got a verbal promise of equity compensation...no thanks/fuck off). I digress.

The point is that there are people working from garages and perhaps some well funded folks in warehouses are building electric vehicles because they know that oil is a dying resource and electric vehicles are the future-however far that future keeps getting pushed back.

The problem is that most of these yet-to-emerge companies are coming out or planning on coming out too soon, maybe like Coda. I foresee EVs gaining huge market share in 5-10 years, which means that if you want to create an EV right now, you'd be best to spend the next 5 years on EV R&D, unlike Adam from Jet Tech, who spent 4 years designing the air flow around and through the car, only to end up scrambling to come up with EV tech moments before launching your company. You can't just jump into building EVs.

You've got to know at least one part of the EV well, like the batteries and then you can focus on how cool the car looks. If I were to start an EV company, I would first read and digest every book I could get my hands on that had anything to do with chemistry and batteries. I would also set up a test vehicle like a VW bug or Chevy S-10 and find a couple of the latest chemistries to scrutinize. Why focus first on a conversion? Well, automotive design hasn't changed all that much ever since the Super Beetle came out and you really need to have experience trying buying, installing, wiring, managing and loading batteries if you want to sell EVs. GM is well positioned to spend a fortune like they did creating the EV1; engineers were to tasked to pull out all the stops and create the best thing they could. Unless you've got unlimited funding like GM, you're better off ignoring the small and easy stuff until you're an electrochemical expert.

Say you're gonna go for it anyway. Do you know how many other people/companies are planning on making an EV? Few people could possibly know the true number unless they were monitoring people's internet traffic...catch that NSA? Yes, the NSA would be a great source for such info, but most of us won't get that sort of access, so you're left to speculate.

Angie's List Sucks-It's a scam!

I went to search Angie's List for contractors in my area and I entered Framing contractor into the search box, I should have been scared off since Angie's site reported that there were over 700 contractors in my city (Crestline, CA). I knew right off the bat that this number was inaccurate, since the tow on Crestline only has less than 10,000 people, 700 of them aren't contractors-even 70 is too high. Try like 3 or 4 and I'd be okay that figure. I thought that framers from surrounding areas were claiming Crestline as a town in their service area, which makes sense since some businesses do serve the area that aren't actually located there. So I thought it was the contractors who were lying. I signed up for a single month because it was $3.75 or so and I figured that it wasn't too much to risk. Then I entered the same terms in the search box after signing into my fresh one-month prepaid account and I got no results for "framing contractors" and after changing to "general contractors" I only got two results, neither of which had any useful reviews. Furthermore, the website is very hard to navigate as it's cluttered with all kins of useless text. Angie's List is a rip off. Granted, I bet that I would have found more contractors if I lived in a more populated area, though I only signed up because the initial results that showed so many contractors. Don't waste your $3.75. You'd be better off donating that money to the Boys and Girls Club or renting a lane at a bowling alley. I should asked Googled "Angie's List sucks" prior to spending a dime to see what popped up. Sure there are haters out there who defame good businesses, but there are plenty of quality anti-Angie's List reviews out there. Now, off to the a real source of info on local contractors.

Electric VW Trike with Soliton Jr. and 36 CALB 40Ah cells

I was concerned prior to starting my trike build that I didn't have enough metal-working experience to build a trike, but I realized that I was wrong and that it just took knowing where to go for the information that I needed.

I read and digested the material on chopperhandbook.com, which gave the the background for motorcycle frame building that I would need to build a really cool trike. People post all kinds of crap online about what steel to get and many will brag about using DOM over ERW, but the fact of the matter is that geometry is more important than anything else. This means that you can use relatively thin-wall, small diameter pipe if you get enough of it and arrange it in triangular configurations.

For my pipe, I used both ERW and DOM, having only spent $130 on DOM 1.5" .120" wall pipe and receiving some pre-bent ERW as a part of a trade. I was able to make use of the bends in the ERW, cutting off small sections with the bends and creatively using them to get the look that I was aiming for.

For my welding, I have a used, Harbor Freight mig welder (never buy one, instead get a used, better quality one, as the HF welder will fail you unless you are super-super careful not to overload it) and a higher quality, remanufactured MIG welder that I bought from Industrial Metal Supply in Southern California for less that the price of a new HF junk MIG. The difference in quality is tremendous, as the used welder will shut down automatically to prevent you from killing it, whereas the HF will let you weld away until you melt something. I have Youtube Vids showing my welders in action. I ended up taking the HF welder apart and turning it into a battery-powered welder, using some of my old Thunder-Sky 40Ah cells that are left over from my Honda Interceptor. The battery MIG welder works much better than any AC unit I've used, but it still uses the HF torch and wire feed.


For creating a fish mouth on the tubing, I downloaded and printed and pattern off of a _______ and used my angle grinder and some gumption to obtain the fish mouths I needed. Note that you will use so many cutoff wheels that it's better to get a drill press and a hole saw for fish-mouthing tubing.

I use only simple, affordable tools. I have no tool that cost much over $100.

The front of the trike is from my Honda Interceptor and the rear is from a 71' Super Beetle. Note that some Beetle transaxles have smaller flywheels, so if you're doing a mix and match like I did (tried putting a 74' flywheel into a 71 transaxle case), you will need to either have a machine shop take off the teeth from the larger flywheel (74') or trade.buy one from a used parts dealer. For me, the cost of machining $70 was greater than the cost of a used flywheel $50, so guess what I did.

Folks on the net keep saying that I should't use a transaxle, just go direct drive, but they don't know what the hell they're taking about. Some situations call for a direct drive and some require a transaxle. My situation will involve using my trike as a truck, so I will be towing trailers and I will be carrying very heavy loads uphills, so gearing will make a huge difference and enable higher top speeds that would direct drive. If I went direct drive, my top speed would be under 60 mph, 4 gears will get me near 100mph with just me on it, especially if I make the trike aerodynamic (I plan to). In the VW Beetle I converted previously, I got that thing up over 75mph with the same parts and this trike weighs much less, so you can tell that it will translate to higher top speed.

The Soliton Jr. is the best controller for this type of project. There is no available equivalent. I am underutilizing it, for now, but in the future I will add another motor and increase the voltage to near 300 volts. Dual motor trike with almost 200HP, here I come! The Soliton makes for a simple and clean install and you also have to factor in to its cost the included precharge and contractor, as well as its configurability...you won't get that from a Kelly (a Kelly controller gives enough configuration to make you think your pack is safe, but my Kelly almost caused me to kill my pack).

CALB are the best option for price, availability, power output and manufacturing quality (cell matching). I brought all cells down to about 95% DOD and not one of them went out of sync from their initial top balance. I only charged them to 3.5 volts, controlled by the JLD404 Intelligent Ah meter, which interfaced with the Elcon PFC1500's BMS input to turn the charger off.

Elcon PFC1500, along with their other chargers, can be programmed by the factory for the specific pack you're using and can accommodate your not using a typical BMS. Actually, the JLD404 Intelligent Ah is a crude BMS, it doesn't monitor the individual cells as some people will tell you that you should do. BMSs can kill battery packs, asI found out the hard way. Your pack will need some maintenance with this crude system, but it brings you closer to your EV, doesn't get your greasy and costs way less than the problematic BMSs that I've used. If you use a BMS, I would go with GBS and their EMS (same thing as BMS, just an energy management system instead of battery management system).

Advanced DC motors can be found new or used for a good price. I got my L91-4003 from KTA Services. I am affiliated with them (having set up affiliate marketing with Wistar), but am not biased toward them. Sometimes you can get a better deal elsewhere and I am all for you being able to afford your project. KTA only stocks high quality parts, just like Evolve Electrics and some other suppliers. Th L91-4003 is a small motor, but can take well over the rated 72 horsepower. It weighs 85 lbs and is manageable by one person, though with the motor adapter plate (Canadian EV has the best quality/value motor adapters) it was heavy,so I created a go kart-based method of installing the motor. I used the rear end of a go kart, and welded two square tubes to the frame, going up diagonally to create an "X" shape, in which the motor was cradled and forward of that "X" shape was a vertical tube welded to the frame with a "V" shaped angled steel piece to hold the other end. Now to remove or infall the motor, I just set the motor/adapter assembly on the cradle and move it into or out of place. I broke off part of its "X" piece for some reason, possibly to make it better, but I got side tracked and never finished that yet.

The seat is a Corbin aftermarket seat from a BMW K1100.