Ohio college students convert 1997 diesel Ford E350 into the Electro-Van
Students from Ohio Technical College thought that a heavy, old van would make for a great electric vehicle conversion project. In OTC's Alternative Fuel program, the 13 students, along with their teacher, ripped the diesel bits from a 1997 Ford E350 van and turned it into the "Electro-Van." The newly-minted EV can go up to 35 mph thanks to 21 12-volt deep cycle marine batteries and a 36 V electric motor that used to pull duty in a forklift and offers 95 hp. All that roof space is used to hold a few solar panels to help power the batteries, but most of the power needs to come from a plug. The conversion project took a total of six weeks, with help from other OTC departments for things like the colorful wrap. Now "finished," the ongoing education project will be used by future students who will update the vehicle to increase voltage and speed.
[Source: Ohio Technical College via AutomobileMag]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
nrb 12:10AM (7/11/2009)
Why can't Detroit build a big van that'll do 35mph on a bunch of lead/acid batteries?
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Ernie 3:01AM (7/13/2009)
You must be being sarcastic.
They *can*. Anyone can, even a bunch of high school students who don't know much about what they're doing.
The real question is "who the heck would buy it" followed by "why would they bother".
kalle 5:28PM (7/11/2009)
I had a moped a while ago that used lead-acid... I'd say you wouldn't want to use them in a vehicle because their strength declines with their charge (and over time) and the charge is not easily measured unless you're pulling electricity from them.
The moped became very weak if there was just a slight uphill when the batteries were below 50% on the "charge meter". The full range was about 20 miles with me on it.
It had 4 x 12 V deep cycle lead acid gel-type batteries. Replacing them would cost about 250 USD and my guess is that they'd last about 1500 miles
( I only used it for about 300 miles so I'm not sure about it).
Charging took about 8 hours.
So basically if you'd be using this van on a daily basis you'd probably need to replace the batteries after two years. Which would cost you about 1500-2000 USD for good quality (which you want). Perhaps even more? I hear forklift batteries are extremely expensive.
I guess it could work as a NEV.
You can push a moped with no batteries (but it's heavy).
But you'd need to call the tow truck if your batteries run out with a VAN. You can push a moped with no batteries (but it's heavy).
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Jeff 11:17AM (7/11/2009)
Lead acids can contribute to that notion that EV batteries need to be replaced all the time. While GM is aiming for 150,000 miles or so with their Li-ion pack, lead-acids don't last nearly as long. Their only good for something on the order of 500 cycles. I've seen lead-acid packs last up to maybe 20,000 miles, but rarely much more than that. Of course this all depends on how you treat the batteries, what kind of depth of discharge you bring it to (GM is keeping the Volt battery between 30% and 80% SOC after all), but in general, I think maybe the major manufacturers want to stay away from these old tech batteries.
Not to take anything away from this project, I think it's fantastic, and for a student project to put on even just 5000 miles is great. I'm sure this van will be really useful for toting things around, and these students will learn tons. Looking forward to future upgrades. If they got a higher voltage motor, they could probably rearrange their parallel-series combination of those batteries and get an even higher top speed, depending on how many amps each battery can handle.
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ale 1:36PM (7/11/2009)
and well considering the motor in it was so-so, a 7.3 was no match for a cummins, thats not a bad way to reuse, I wonder what they did with the old engine and drivetrain... maybe a recycling car part company...
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Punsons Flora 3:12AM (7/18/2009)
All that roof space is used to hold a few solar panels to help power the batteries, but most of the power needs to come from a plug.
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