GM and others used to make electric vehicles that charged overnight. They ran for about 120 mpg, were clean, no spark plugs, fast startup, etc., and charged overnight. The cost was equivalent to running 120mpg for 60cents. If produced today with a gas backup, one could take almost any trip they wanted. We would probably be no more dependent on foreign oil.
But since I don’t believe these electric/gas hybrid types of vehicles are produced anywhere, I am interested in the original electric cars that allowed one to go 120miles without charging. This would probably serve 75% of all my driving needs.
Where can I get one? I’ve looked everywhere that I know to look.
4 Responses
It might be hard to find a car with 120 miles range, but try this link:
http://www.zapworld.com/
Also, there are many hassles associated with owning electrical vehicle, consider buying some small Toyota or Honda instead – they have more than 30 mpg rating, check Toyota Yaris or Honda Fit – this would be more realistic solution for high fuel prices.
There are several places that you could purchase a used EV. http://www.cloudelectric.com/generic.html?pid=70 has a nice list of sites.
If you’re looking for the GM EV1, sorry, most of those have been crushed by GM.
Toyota is still supporting the RAV4EV, though. hard to find outside of CA, though.
If youve got $100,000, buy a Tesla electric sports car – 0 to 60 in 4 seconds, 130mph, 250 miles between charges:
http://www.teslamotors.com
If you have about $25,000 to spend, there’s the NMG (no more gas) vehicle – it looks funny, but it does freeway speeds:
http://www.gotoreviews.com/archives/cars/the-nmg-no-more-gas-electric-car.html
If you’ve only got $10,000, and you don’t need to get on the freeway, there’s the ZAP:
http://www.zapworld.com//cars/xebra.asp
But if you want to do freeways, but haven’t got much money, there’s a bunch of used EVs, hobbyist-built EVs, and converted gas vehicles for sale at places like this:
http://www.grassrootsev.com/convert.htm
and http://www.austinev.org/evtradinpost
You can also look on eBay. I bought a used EV on eBay for about $2000, and spent another $4000 to fix it up. These are old technology EVs, which means a 50-mile range, not a 100-mile range. But I still drive mine almost everywhere. My electricity cost is just a little over 1 cent per mile. Beat that!
Yes, the GM EV1s have all been crushed aside from a handful are in museums, etc., out of the public’s hands.
Ebay is a good place to find Toyota RAV-4 EVs, Ford Ranger EVs, and some EV conversions. The EV Trading Post is good, as are the Electric Auto Association other chapters’ web sites. If you’re really industrious, you might also find some AC Propulsion conversions at auctions — sorry, don’t know what auctions to suggest!
You might also keep an eye out for plug-in hybrid conversions done by companies like Hymotion and eDrive, who make a conversion kit for Priuses that allow it to get 100+ mpg by changing out the batteries for ones that can run the car in electric-only mode for longer than a standard late-model Prius. These cars then get plugged in to recharge the batteries.