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Day 1 – The electric vehicle project starts

Totally by coincidence the day I picked up the vehicle was also Earth Day 2009.

The overall goal is to have this jalopy powered entirely by wind energy. Living in Iowa, I have seen fields of wind farms spring up in a matter of months. (I will add a post with some photos of a nearby wind turbine field). Our power company offers customers the option to have a portion of or up to 100% of their energy use come directly from wind energy. While I know they can’t supply my home energy directly from the wind turbines, I understand that the power company probably produces X amount of wind energy and month and I use X amount per month… so there you go. Since they don’t store energy it seems kinda iffy, but I do understand what the power company is trying to do and the more people who sign-up for the program the more turbines they put up.

OK. Goals. Gotta have a goal. Having some sort of goal or desired range and speed is important when planning an electric car conversion. I live in a very small town so my needs are limited. A couple of goals I want this project to accomplish in order of priority.

1. Work. Having it actually work would be good!
2. Be able to buzz around town (30 mph max)
3. Be able to bring the kids to school
4. Be able to go 16 miles round trip to a local state park
5. Be able to go 20 miles round trip to the next town
6. Be able to haul 2 kayaks on a roof rack 25 miles round trip
7. Be able to go 50 miles per hour

I am hoping for the first 3 goals. Anything after that would be awesome. But, after looking and searching at EV Album for VW Beetles I found a few using same motor/controller/voltage that I am planning and are reporting around 40 miles in range. So, maybe I can reach all 7 goals!

OK. Now some info about the junker. It is a 1969 VW Beetle Bug. Now, I’m not quite sure if it was actually driven as a Baja Bug or not, but someone at some point started converting it from stock to baja. The plan of most that convert gas cars to electric is to sell the gas motor and recoup some expenses of the car or project. This VW Beetle didn’t some with an engine, but it was partially converted to a Baja and had a fiberglass front end and probably 150lbs of metal removed off the back. So, I forked over $525 for the car. Since the 1-piece fiberglass front-end is worth around $325 dollars it seemed like an OK deal. It did need quite a bit of work, new brakes, had some rust holes, front tires are good, back tires are bad. It had been stripped and media blasted. And anything I do to it is an improvement… I think!