What changes to a car have to be made to make it electric?

Answer 1

A lot.

The internal combustion engine, or ICE will have to be removed, along with the gas tank, fuel lines (automatic transmission?) along with the radiator.

You will have to beef up the suspension and springs on the vehicle before adding batteries, motor, potentiometer or pot (for the accelerator) a controller, plus a vacuum pump to run the heating and power brakes.

If you want heat and air-conditioning, add an electric or gasoline heater and something to spin the a/c compressor.

You will also want to add low rolling resistance tires and regenerative braking to extend your range as this will be limited.

Another change is to add a charger and a system to top off the water in the batteries if you're using lead acid ones.

Batteries are heavy and expensive and can easily add $6000 to $8000 to the cost of this conversion.

You need to compare how much money you'll recoup on gas as opposed to the cost of batteries, electricity (which isn't much) and the other part needed to make the conversion.

Another thing to think about is that your registration will go up considerably as opposed to a gasoline or diesel powered vehicle. This is because you use the roads, but electricity isn't taxed to offset this.

It costs just south of $100 to license a car in my state, so it might be about a grand for an electric car (this is still a good deal). As always, don't use a junker for a vehicle, as it will still be one as an electric one (unless you want to spend more time and money to restore it).

Good luck.

My veiwIn my area registration of an electric car costs no more or less than a Gas or Diesel car.

Go on the web and chose a car that has a easy build kit for your first try. I am still running my first one.

This can be as dificult and expensive as above or you can build a simple cheap to run city car for less than good used car.

Have fun, I did