Craigslist find of the day: Homebuilt electric bike
There are plenty of you readers who write in to us regularly to inquire about where you can buy an electric vehicle. Unfortunately affordable EVs are few and far between from regularly manufacturers. There are however, some home-built vehicles that are available for those who care to peruse the listings of sites like Craigslist and eBay. While some of these are conversions from existing vehicles others are ground up builds. This particular listing concerns the latter. Someone in Dubois PA is offering up a battery powered trike that brings new meaning to minimalist. Good luck getting this machine registered for use on the road anywhere, but if you are interested in getting something to play around with, this might be a decent place to start.[Source: Craigslist]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Brent 2:53PM (7/16/2008)
Let me guess, the seller send autoblog the tip.
Reply
James 6:41PM (7/16/2008)
Nope, it was me. I was looking through the motorcycle classifieds in Columbus, Ohio when I ran into this ad. I think I'll still buy a motorcycle, but you never know what will turn up on Craigslist.
William 6:48PM (7/16/2008)
No: Accually I am the builder and I was surprised to get an inquiry refering to Autoblog as the source so I had to check it out. It does work and it is possible to get it titled for the street in Pennsylvania as a motorcycle. I already have a Special Construction Title and # plate for another one.
iHero 7:51PM (7/16/2008)
it would be great if we could see some pics of how the motor was coupled to the wheel.
How many volts ?
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jcwinnie 8:51AM (7/20/2008)
Actually, there are a number of other questions that I would like to ask the maker, e.g., are those solar batteries? does it have regen? what sort of suspension systems did you employ? et cetera
It looks like the skeleton for an Aptera and makes you wonder about the difference in cost. It shows that the maker did his homework in designing the trike, e.g., choice of tadpole design (2 steering wheels in front, 1 wheel in rear).
Ideally, in addition to an aerodynamic fairing, you probably would want in-wheel drive motors in the front steering wheels. The problem is un-sprung weight.
What the prototype also suggest is that a modek need not be a body on top of a lead sled. The lead sled could be in a locomotive - caboose configuration, too. The driver compartment detaches and reattaches to a different lead sled.