You want your car to run on electricity? I've got a guy...
If you're like me and you live near Lemont, Illinois, there's a small company called Pioneer Conversions that can convert your ozone-eating, oxygen-depleting, daisy-choking, baby seal-killing gasoholic car into a clean green driving machine. They specialize in Cavaliers, Saturns and small pick-up trucks, but that isn't stopping them from working on a Porsche Boxster or an MG B. They say conversions will run you $10-20k, or you can buy the parts from them and have a go at it yourself.Before the comments ensue about it not being cost effective - you're right, it isn't. $10K+ in addition to the donor car is hard to swallow, unless your reasons go beyond saving money. If it's about saving the ozone, the air, the daisies and the baby seals, or simply alleviating your own conscience, this is one way to do it. The guys at Pioneer Conversions thankfully seem to be willing to work on other models besides the plastic domestics, so you won't have to deal with the amenity trade-offs in some hybrids or electric cars. They don't try to sell it as a money-saver either, so they appear to be honest eco-mentalists. Interestingly, they are able to convert a car to electric with an automatic transmission, something I haven't heard of before in a conversion. Follow the yellow brick 'Read' link to see their homepage.
[Source: JD Electric Vehicles Inc. -- Thanks for the tip, Sean!]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Gabby :0) 9:19PM (8/18/2008)
So is there a posibility of transforming our old cars to electric or any other kind of green energy saving auto?!!!
Love, Gabby. :0)
http://stemcellforautism.blogspot.com/
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Baumann 3:06PM (11/12/2007)
That website leaves quite a bit to be desired.
What are the performance specs? Top Speed? Range? Are the cars that they're building even adequate for commuter use?
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Zigster 8:27PM (11/12/2007)
i think this would be great for classic cars
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marguerite manteau-rao 5:19PM (11/12/2007)
A lot of attention is being given to building new green cars. How about the millions of existing cars? Not everybody can afford to replace their gas guzzling old car with a shiny green car. At least not right away. Do you know of any other ventures besides this one?
Obviously this is also a policy question.
marguerite manteau-rao
green blogger
http://lamarguerite.wordpress.com
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Karkus 7:02PM (11/12/2007)
The people who can't afford a "shiny new car" certainly can't afford one of these conversions either. You can buy a new or almost new car for that price.
But aside from the poor ecomonics of it, does it even make sense from an energy standpoint?
If you're taking a perfectly good engine out of a relatively new car, that seems a bit wasteful.
If you take an old car with a bad engine and replace it, that seems more logical, except that the rest of the car may not survive long enough to make good, long term use of the electric drive system.
Hmmm....
The only way it makes sense is from an early adopter perspective. By "subsidizing" new technology, these people help the development and acceptance of such new technologies.
As for dealing with the current fleet of cars - the most productive thing to do would be to "fix" the wasteful behavior of their drivers (and lowering highway speed limits, raising gas taxes, and making emissions check mandatory everywhere).
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ug 1:06PM (11/15/2007)
Making a new car is very energy intensive. So it's actually better for the environment than buying a new hybrid. Also, don't be so sure it won't be economical long-term. Gas prices are not exactly standing still.
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