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Showing posts from July, 2007

MG Electric Car Conversion

During the spring and summer of 2008, I converted a 1957 MG kit car to full electric with my brother and father. The project took us three months, requiring a lot of design, construction, electrical work, welding, and machining. This was my first large scale building project and I learned a lot about the realization of design. We used a nine-inch DC brushed motor, powered by a 176 V, 12 kWh Ni-MH battery pack. Throughout the process, we met a lot of people within the electric car community in northern California who offered us assistance. This project not only developed my technical knowledge, but also exposed me to the political movement to get electric cars on the road. This picture was taken pre-conversion. Before we gutted out the internal combustion components, we took this puppy for a few rides down the back country roads. The VW rear-mounted engine roared like an airplane. With the tiny windshield and rattling fenders, I felt like I was flying! It made me sad to dismantle this