electric ranger?

[link040188]

i know ford made one but i was wondering if it is somthing someone could do in their driveway

 

[rurouni20xx]

for one that would be interesting but at the same time why? electric engines are battery setups are costly, PITA and dont produce near the power of a gas engine. sure you see on tv ppl racing electric cars and stuff but its not cost effective. can you imagine gutting the truck, buying a 1500-3000 dollar electric motor, figure out a way to put it on a transmission, then buying another 1000 dollars worth of batteries to run it, then dicking around w/ a recharge port and all that damn wiring? making it run on a throttle linkage w/ resistors and junk, its a radioshack/electrical engineering thing. nothing i could do to say the least. thats just an attempt to make the tree huggers happy and al gores global warming crok uh shit theory play in part. you cant beat the tried and true fossil fuel engine as far as longevity, ease of maintenance, compatibility, durability, and practicality. can you imagine going off roading and short a wire or your batteries go dead? what about going across route 66 and corrode a cable in half? short your motor going mud riding? lets just say electric motors are in golf carts and not 4wd off road machines or hwy vehicles for a reason.

 

[link040188]

ya i thought it would not be cost effective but i just thought it would be cool to sneak up on ppl in my silent ranger and i also was not thinking about a motor on a tranny what if they were directly to the wheels

 

[link040188]

that would boost the cost but this is a theoretical thought anyway

 

[Wicked_Sludge]

its been done, quite a bit. search google. just about any vehicle you could want to convert has already been converted by someone. corvettes, VW's, mustangs, escorts, porsche...and on and on.

nothing i could do to say the least. thats just an attempt to make the tree huggers happy and al gores global warming crok uh shit theory play in part.

electricity is considerably cheaper than fossil fuels. most peoples commutes are under 40 miles a day, which is well within the range of most electric vehicles. i did the math once and driving an electric ranger (calculating gas prices at the time and electricity per KWH in my area) was the equivilent of getting over 144MPG. at those rates, an electric conversion would pay for itself in time.

you cant beat the tried and true fossil fuel engine as far as longevity, ease of maintenance, compatibility, durability, and practicality.

here you could not be more wrong. electric motors are leaps and BOUNDS more reliable and durable than internal cumbustion engines. they arent even on the same plane. maintainence? top the batteries off with water every month or so? practicality? guess it depends on where you get your EV conversion parts.

an electric vehicle would not be good off road due to their short range and added weight...but i dont think thats really what the OP had in mind (correct me if im wrong).

 

[rurouni20xx]

well you have me there, but have you ever worked on electric motors in a constant setting like golf carts? you short a cell on the battery all the batteries are fkd, thats 1000 in batteries that have to be replace, ive seen this more times than once. the motor, under normal running around of the course and outside the brushes last about 500 hours or 6 months of normal use. rebuilding that motor isnt cheap either. off roading (weve all seen the raised golf carts that hunters use on occasion thinking theyll sneak up on the deer) you add water/mud corrosion your lucky if it lasts 3 months. thats just a practical example. granted this is just a golfcart not an electric vehicle but similar principles still apply.

 

[link040188]

well i didnt have off road in mind so that shouldent be a problem i have a dream of restoring an 88 ranger and putting an electric motor in it does any one know any sites that i can look around to find parts and what about motor to wheel since you can run a electric motor and any rpm (thoreticly) you dont need a tranny to reduse the speed of the motor

 

[rurouni20xx]

depends on how fast you want to go, granted lower rpm on an emotor may take less power to pull similar to a gas motor using less gas, im not sure on that one. no ideas where to even begin to start to look for stuff like that. all the golf cart performance stuff just offer parts for gas engines. good luck w/ it.

 

[link040188]

not real fast just as much as a stock 4.0 ranger today i wasent looking for sports car performance just efficiency thats not boring and before anyone chimes in talking about how im not really helping reduce oil consumption that wasent my goal i know the power i use to recharge my batteries at home still come from power plants that burn oil or other fuels i just want it to be cheaper to drive my truck and still have fun doing it

 

[rurouni20xx]

sure thing i understand that, heres my question tho thats always bugged me about e-vehicles. since you plug in your batteries and charge overnight, are you ready for a rediculously high electric bill? bad enuff in la where i live i used 40 dollars worth of electricity and got hammered w/ a 145 dollar bill w/ an "electric fuel cost" surcharge of 105 bux. other ppl in dif areas have storm taxes (like they arent supposed to). to cool one of my friends single wide trailer w/ 2 fans and a small 350 cu ft window unit a/c, single fridge/freezer electric water heater costs 595 dollars. can you imagine plugging in a battery charger all night for 30 days and adding that to your bill? ill gladly fill once a week than pay 300 or so extra dollars for electricity in my case. there was a point in time where i was doing 150 miles a day filling once every other day b4 gas shot to 3 bux a gal here, i would have liked an e vehicle then, but for now im content. nothing against you or anything just wanted to throw that out there and see how ppl bit it. again good luck buddy!

 

[Wicked_Sludge]

the dealership i work at also sells GEM's, which are basically street legal golf carts. as such, i have to work on them on the very rare occasion one comes in for service. weve never had any problems with the motors or batteries.

there are already electric production vehicles that easily break the 100K mile mark with absolutely no attention to the batterys, controller, or motor. look at vehicles like the escape hybrid, prius hybrid, chevy volt, EV ranger, geo storm, chevy s-10, toyota rav4, and so on.

the only part of a series wound dc motor you will ever have to touch will be the brushes. WarP claims up to 80K miles on a set of brushes...which can be replaced for a wopping $58. you would spend $533 in oil changes on a gas engine in that time.

shorting a single cell on a 20KWh+ battery will barely be noticeable...much less take down the whole pack. even if you drove it with said bad cell for several months, the other batteries would likely be salvagable with just an equalizing charge.

as i said before, the 144MPG figure i gave includes the cost of electricity vs gas. it would cost about $20 a month to drive an EV ranger 40 miles a day, 20 days a month. vs over $100 a month to do the same in a v6 ranger.

electric vehicles are cheaper to "fuel", and cheaper to maintain...there are no two-ways about it. their downfalls are lack of range and expensive initial investment. there are absolutely no reliability problems.

as for power: the EV ranger has almost the exact same performance ratings as a 4 cylinder ranger. when looking at electric motors for a swap, you'll notice their ratings seem pitifully low (usually around 80HP), but electric motors are not rated using the same system as gas engines. a gas engine is rated at its peak HP, wheras an electric motor is rated at its CONTINUOUS HP rating, the power it can put out all day long without overheating. its PEAK HP rating is usually 3-4 times what its continuous rating is. on top of that, electric motors make 100% of their rated torque at 0RPM, a gas engine does not. this means excellent power for getting a vehicle moving.

electric motors do have a red line. i think the WarP 9 is rated around 5,000 RPM. most people connect the electric motor directly to the vehicles stock transmission for simplicity sake, and just run in 3rd gear.

more info on EV conversions:
http://www.evalbum.com/#
ev supplies (motors, controllers, chargers, etc):
http://www.go-ev.com/

 

[link040188]

thanks for the sites im gonna go spend some time surfing the interwebs

 

[rurouni20xx]

interesting the line of golf carts we carried shorted the motors and brushes all the time, plus when one battery went the draw on the other batteries sucked them down and ruined them, thats why we changed them so much. i guess it was a crappy line of carts, i cant even remember what brand they were, just glad i dont work there anymore. ill look into this as well, not going to replace my gas vehicle, i just like looking at technology and the kewlness. maybe i can find something to help the e-turbo guy...

 

[link040188]

strange thought what if you run an alternator on the output opposite the connection to the wheels to run other accesories such as a/c fans or is that how its done and i just havent seen it

 

[Wicked_Sludge]

then you wouldnt have any charging when waiting at red lights.

most EV's use a 12-volt power supply that steps down the voltage from the main battery pack in order to run 12v accessories such as lights, stereo, etc.

you also have the issue of heat if you choose to run it. most EV's use a ceramic core space heater in place of the vehicles original heater core.

if you wish to keep your power steering, you could use a small electric motor to drive the pump.

for power brakes, a vacuum pump is really the only way to go.

theres a lot more to converting a vehicle than just the "big" stuff like the traction motor. you have tons of little things that need to be re-designed to function without the internal combustion engine.

rurouni20xx, your comparing a golf cart battery pack, at around 5 KWH, to an EV battery pack at over 20 KWH. when a single battery or cell dies in a tiny little golf cart pack it can quickly drain and damage the other batteries because the draw is a huge percentage of the total power the pack can supply. in an EV battery pack, the same amount of draw would be just a fraction of the total power the pack can supply....thus the pack can "feed" the drain for a long time before any appriciable performance is lost.

id love to convert an electric vehicle some day (or maybe even make a home-brew hybrid)...but for now the initial investment is still too high for me.