Electric Festivas

[hbkeultjes]

New to this forum - interested in hearing from anyone who has or is working on a battery electric Festiva and any details of the components and the conversion process.

Henry Keultjes
hbkeultjes at earthlink dot net

[MONSOON]

Welcome to the site!
I dont think anyone here has done an electric conversion. Its been done to be sure, once definately. But the type of per charge mileage it was getting (something like 50 miles) didnt make it anything Id be interested in myself. Not when you can get over 400 miles to a tankful.

[eurotiva]

I know of 2 here in florida. I helped build one, and sold a engine-less festy to the other guy. I probably don't have enough answers for you, but I do know some...There is a company (not sure who) that sells a kit to mate to the transmisssion. Again I do not know who sold the kit. My friend got it off ebay, It was $200 but was said to have retailed for $1900. We also used an aircraft starter and alot of batteries. I know he also spent $1000, for a "controller". It does about 55 mph and has about a 50 mile range and takes a while to charge. Hope this helps.

[bhazard]

I could imagine it being pretty neat if you do a lot of city driving or have a short work commute. Less gas used is less gas used.

[Britstiva]

Gravelcrawler on here is actually building an electric '65 VW Beetle. He's using an electric forklift motor to power the transmission.

[TominMO]

I know of 2 here in florida. I helped build one, and sold a engine-less festy to the other guy. I probably don't have enough answers for you, but I do know some...There is a company (not sure who) that sells a kit to mate to the transmisssion. Again I do not know who sold the kit. My friend got it off ebay, It was $200 but was said to have retailed for $1900. We also used an aircraft starter and alot of batteries. I know he also spent $1000, for a "controller". It does about 55 mph and has about a 50 mile range and takes a while to charge. Hope this helps.

Seems like a lot of trouble and expense for a limited return--slow and short range. Possibly useful in limited applications; but with hypermiling in the city you can beat 50 MPG, and you're not restricted to 55 MPH on the hwy. At current prices for gas here, $2.17 for regular, 50 MPG equals 4.34 cents per mile. It would take forever to break even on the cost of the conversion. And the batteries don't last forever.

[neanderpaul]

I'm with TominMO on this. I'm waiting until battery technology advances and battery prices come down Before I would consider. I've seen 4 ev festivas on the web and know of one local with the running gear from forklift.

[eurotiva]

I met takeone51 (Chris) and his wife....and he has a kit...just sitting there.....and his car is b6t and laughing gas....

[mikec]

battery and electric motor technology has improved drastically over the years....but i remember a forklift i used to drive at ford motor co that would do 25 mph...it was fast as crap ! and it was big !...batterys weighed 4500 lbs !...one large one but they would have to charge overnite in order to run next day for 6-8 hours..48 volt .and would sometimes need a battery change during the day to keep going...the sad thing about electrics is the weight factor....but i think forklift stuff would be best best to put into a festy...course then again i havent kept up on the electric stuff like i used to....still think hydrogen is the way to go...my .02 worth

[batstiva]

For the amount of money you'd spend on going electric right now, and the limited range you would get, I'd be more inclined to swap to diesel, and then do a bio diesel second tank. I have a friend who bought a diesel bug, installed a 12 gallon bio tank in the trunk, gets his fry oil free from several restaurants near where he works, routed his antifreeze to the trunk to warm the bio, and literally buys maybe one tank of regular diesel every six months. Basically, he runs the regular diesel until the antifreeze flowing to the bio tank has liquified the bio, then he switches to that tank. So, on average, he uses regular diesel for, maybe 10 minutes a day. The rest of the time, he's on bio.
And he averages between 60 and 70 mpgs. :shock:

I think electric, in the future, will be the way we go, but it's just not here yet. IMHO

[neanderpaul]

I think electric, in the future, will be the way we go, but it's just not here yet. IMHO

That's what I think too. It's weight and cost prohibitive right now. They have come a long way but we aren't there yet.

I'm looking forward to it!

[drddan]

Yes, yes, yes. I agree with Mike.....HYDROGEN !!!! Put a Mason jar on there already!
I really cant believe I dont read more on here about hydrogen. Cleaner burning, cleans the engine, increases HP, increases MPG. One of the reasons I got an '88 was for the carb. Hydrogen works with carb's real well.

If TominMO put hydrogen on BLUE, i'm sure he could get close to 70MPG.

[hbkeultjes]

I know of 2 here in florida. I helped build one, and sold a engine-less festy to the other guy. I probably don't have enough answers for you, but I do know some...There is a company (not sure who) that sells a kit to mate to the transmisssion. Again I do not know who sold the kit. My friend got it off ebay, It was $200 but was said to have retailed for $1900. We also used an aircraft starter and alot of batteries. I know he also spent $1000, for a "controller". It does about 55 mph and has about a 50 mile range and takes a while to charge. Hope this helps.

I would be interested in hearing more details from those electric folks in Florida.
hbkeultjesatearthlinkdotnet

[hbkeultjes]

I met takeone51 (Chris) and his wife....and he has a kit...just sitting there.....and his car is b6t and laughing gas....

Any more details on that kit just sitting there?

hbkeultjesatearthlinkdotnet

[hbkeultjes]

New to this forum - interested in hearing from anyone who has or is working on a battery electric Festiva and any details of the components and the conversion process.

Henry Keultjes
hbkeultjes at earthlink dot net

Any Festiva members in Ohio? Near Mansfield?

hbkeultjesatearthlinkdotnet