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Homebrew electric Bradley GT II in Texas teenager’s garage

Thursday, October 16th, 2008

Filed under: EV/Plug-in, Green Culture, Green Daily

Photo by internets_dairy. Licensed under Creative Commons license 2.0.

Following in the footsteps of our friend Andrew Angellotti, another teenager has taken it upon himself to convert a vehicle to fun on electric power on his own time. This time, the story revolves around 17-year-old Lucas Laborde, who took an old Bradley GT II kit car and put in about 150 hours to swap the engine for an electric motor and a set of batteries providing 96 volts. Luke’s father bought him the $5,000 vehicle on eBay and then spent another $5,700 on the parts needed to make it run on electricity, according to the AP. One problem he had was that the 640 pounds worth of lead-acid batteries caused the frame to warp and the doors to not close. The windshield wipers don’t work yet and the car has a top speed of just 45 miles per hour, but it’s clear from the article that none of these shortcomings make Luke any less proud of his work. Congrats, and if anyone’s got pictures, send ‘em in.

[Source: AP via Green Daily]

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Posted in Uncategorized, electric car, ElectricCar, electric truck, ElectricTruck, Texas, EV, electric-car, electric-vehicle, diy, homebrew, lucas-laborde, luke-laborde, truck ev, TruckEv | No Comments »

Balqon officially launches world’s most powerful electric truck

Tuesday, September 23rd, 2008

Filed under: EV/Plug-in, USA

It was only a few months ago that we informed you of a really heavy duty electric truck undergoing testing at the Port of Los Angeles. The Nautilus E30 from Balqon must have aced its audition because the company has just officially shown it off to the public at last week’s CAPCOA Green Conference and Expo and announced its upcoming commercialization. There are orders for more of the behemoths from the Port of Los Angeles as well as from the AQMD. Union Pacific will incorporate the vehicle into its electric truck pilot program at the Intermodal Container Transfer Facility that it operates outside of the ports at Los Angeles and Long Beach. Balqon is so bullish on the future that they are moving their production facilities to Harbor City, California where they can produce up to 1,000 units a year.

The E30 retails for $208,500 and should, over 10 years, save about $400,000 in fuel while not emitting diesel smoke or a lot of noise and could help its California customers cope with stricter air pollution control programs. The truck can pull 60,0000 pounds and has a range between 30 and 60 miles. Though its customers can charge the lead acid batteries to 60 percent in one hour and completely full in 4 to 6 hours with an available fast-charging system, the batteries can also be swapped out in minutes. Bonus video of the E30 prototype going through its paces earlier this year as well as a press release after the jump.

[Source Balqon / Cunningham Report]

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Posted in Uncategorized, electric truck, ElectricTruck, AQMD, Balqon, CAPCOA, Intermodal Container Transfer Facility, IntermodalContainerTransferFacility, Nautilus E30, NautilusE30, Port of Los Angeles, PortOfLosAngeles | No Comments »

Chicago Auto Show: Gallery of Zap’s current vehicles

Wednesday, February 7th, 2007

Filed under: EV/Plug-in, AutoblogGreen Exclusive, Zap, Chicago Auto Show

Don’t think that I didn’t drill the on-site ZAP representative for any information about the ZAP\Lotus APX collaboration, but, alas, he knew nothing. Is it just vapor-ware? The jury is still out on that one, hopefully more information will be coming in the next few months. Not all was lost, however, as I did come away with a gallery of high-quality images of ZAP’s current production models. As you may know, they already have a series of three-wheeled vehicles for sale, including a four-door, a truck and a little Segway-like scooter. I took pictures of them and you can see them in all their electric-only glory here.

Gallery: ZAP’s current models