First Things First

We have almost finished cleaning the garage - a task that I had been putting off while we remodeled the old farmhouse and cleaned up the outbuildings. With hope, the car will be moved into the garage tomorrow.

Today my son and I took out the headliner. Probably not the first step in most EV conversions, but more than necessary for this one. It seems a former owner had more than a passing interest in air fresheners - the headliner is a magnet for odors and even after a full month of airing out the car it still has a strong perfume like odor. Hopefully direct sunlight and fresh air will do the trick. If not, we will be learning how to replace the headliner fabric...

EV Component Selection

I have been narrowing down the candidates for the major EV components. Nothing is set in stone yet - final selection could easily change.

I am still up in the air about batteries - more on those in another post.

Motor	NetGain WarP-9
Controller	NetGain WarP-Drive
Battery	AGM
Battery	Lithium

Standing on Shoulders

No path breaking here. PT Cruiser EV conversions have been done before. Here are some that are my inspiration:

• 2001 - Kevin Cooper
• 2002 - Robert Bradshaw
• 2001 - Ralph Tate
• 2001 - Joe & Tom Huemann

At some point, I'll add a page on  evalbum.com for this project. I think it's a bit early just yet.

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When deciding on any vehicle for conversions, there are always pros and cons. For the PT cruiser, here are a few of each:

Pros

• Room for batteries beneath the floor. That means the entire cabin space is still available for passengers and cargo. (See Joe & Tom Huemann's conversion above to see how it is done).
• Seats four adults comfortably - lots of leg and head room in both the front and back seats.

Cons

• A bit on the heavy side ~3100 lbs. More weight means a bigger motor and more batteries, all else being the same. Chrysler isn't know for producing the most svelte of automobiles.
• Aerodynamically challenged. CD = 0.40. Compare that to the 2011 Prius (0.25). All those fat fenders disturb the

Getting Started

The EV Cruiser conversion project is just getting started. I purchased the donor car on April 20, 2011, though I am not sure what the official start date should be defined as - perhaps today, as this is the first blog entry.

A couple of things that I have done before today:

• Had the A/C purged. Not cheap! The guy at the auto repair shop where I had it done said a lot of people just discharge the fluid themselves, saving 75 bucks or so. Most of those people are not doing EV conversions I suspect
• Had the vehicle weighed. I had planned to have it weighed at a local dairy farm, but their scale was disconnected when they put in a new calf barn. So instead, we took it to a nearby metal recycler.
• Purchased a set of used shop manuals off Amazon, shown here along side a copy of "Build Your Own Electric Vehicle":