Don't shoot me.

I've considered pulling the engine and transmission from my 2008 Sport AT and replacing them with an electric motor and batteries.

What is the engine/trans worth with 90,000 miles? No known issues and running just fine.

With fuel prices what they are, and the miles I drive (45k/year) I expect I can save over $2,500 per year doing this. If fuel goes to $4 then I'd save almost $3,000. This takes into account a 6-year lifespan on lithium batteries, current electric rates and does not include the maintenance expenses of the engine and trans .

Asbestos undies are on...fire away.

 

Last time I bought an engine/trans for a GD.. I picked up both fully dressed for $300.

That's not a typo.

 

^^ dam thats a goooooooood price shit gas over here in cali ranges from 440-470 lol :'( but its been going down lately

 

I have spotted a tiny flaw in your plan which is that 45k miles a year is 180 miles a day if you do it 250 days a year. Most new model electric cars have something like a 100 mile range, and even IF you think you can do it with something approaching that efficiency you'll still be short unless you load up on batteries, in which case your charging time is going to be so substantial you may not be able to recharge overnight.

If you really think you would save $2500/yr then you might be able to make the entire project pay off but I think you have some range issues to tackle first ...

I personally would invest in some telecommuting advocacy to your boss :P

 

Fuji - you know your stuff...but I'm tenacious. I do drive 180 miles a day, and intend on carrying batteries to get me 150 miles (I can charge at work). I'm also willing to give up a little cargo space (in addition to under the hood) for extra battery storage. I'm also toying with using a tiny trailer to hold even more batteries for the infrequent longer trips. But I'm probably 6-months or a year away from tearing it all out, so I have some time to hone the plan.

I will also definitely be lobbying for telecommuting (but only can hope for a day or two a week)!

 

Electric motor swaps are for hobbying fun. They are not to save money on gas. You will spend $10k and 100s of hours monkeying, troubleshooting, designing, etc... You're better off buying/leasing an electric car like Leaf, Fit EV, Volt. To my knowledge, hobbyists use lead acid batteries - not clear there's a market for lithium ion batteries for retail.

I just bought a salvage engine for a Fit for $250. They usually go for $400 to $1,000 ish on ebay, lkqonline, etc... Unless you can find an end user buyer I think you're looking at scrap metal cost ~ $100?

 

Sometimes this is more the desired outcome

 

Fujisawa - you're right, the doing is half the fun.

CTCT - thanks for pricing information (I didn't think to check Ebay). However, please watch out for making baseless assumptions - check google or ask a question before you assume. My preliminary estimates are that with $12k in parts (including widely available lithium batteries), $1k in engineering/design assistance I'll have a system that will get me 150 miles on a charge which will cost $2500 in electricity and batteries per 50,000 miles compared to $5,700 in gas (at 35 mpg and $4/gal). The $3200 annual savings will pay off the system in 4 years. Keep in mind, this doesn't include labor, but does include the cost of the batteries ($1200/year with a 6-year lifespan - included in the cost of electricity). I admit that I'm in the design phase, but things look promising.

This is a lot cheaper than buying/leasing a commercially available, and none of the ones you've listed are capable of the 150 mile 1-way commute I have. Check the Tesla Model S ($85k), and the BYD e6 (not yet available).

 

Denachuck, I didn't make any baseless assumptions. I wrote that I wasn't clear on availability of LI batteries. Perhaps you cleared that up. I totally have not researched DIY electric car conversion but there seems to be a lot of web info about people who have already done it or want to sell you books on how to do it. Some hurdles I can think of would be engineering the thermal management of the batteries. That includes their physical design, location, cooling method, and integration into the controller. This is a safety issue. Then there's things like vacuum for the brake booster and a/c. I'm not sure if motors have a through shaft that would allow you to drive a vacuum pump and a/c pump on the other side of the transmission. Either way you're looking at a lot of designer time and some decent engineering time. Unless you have friends that are engineers (or are one yourself) I think your engineering estamated costs are quite low. Custom machined brackets can also get into the thousands of dollars.

A friend of mine did his bs mechanical engineering senior project on an elec vehicle conversion. That was probably 3 or 4 years ago and certainly with LI batteries available things have changed. However, he and his team spent countless hours running into little problems that were not that simple to solve. Their car did finally run but getting the controller software to manage everything the way they wanted turned out to be a science project.

I think it's a great project but I would do it for fun and consider great risk to your cost and schedule estimates.