[goingbush]

Australia is very slow on the uptake of EV's and as such we have no source of salvage batteries, I paid $10,500 AU for 46x new Sinopoly LiFePo4 200aha prismatic cells, imported from china , delivered to my door, thats US $8500

and Im not totally happy with their performance , and I now find this is typical of Prismatics , not being able to use the full advertised capacity.

Next conversion I'll follow Duncans lead and have a 3rd party export some salvage batteries for me.

Im expected to get 80-100km range but realistically get about 60km , but my vehicle has the aerodynamic co-efficiency of a brick, but still happy with the way it performs.

 

[goingbush]

Both those points are Valid.

I conservatively spent $100 a month on petrol (gas) driving my LandRover , just as a local runabout . @$100 a month my conversion is paid for (motor & batteries) in 15 years , Most likely quicker as no doubt the price of fuel will go up.

(And I dont pay for electricity as I have a 5Kw PV array. )

At 3000 charge cycles my cells will last 25-30 years .

So basically the batteries are free, eventhough I pad more than anyone else that declared their cost.

But like Duncan said, its not about the money or economics , nor even about being green, ( Ive removed the EGR & DPF on my other car -
so I suppose it makes up for that) for me it about the project & the uniqueness , and its hoot to drive !!

 

[goingbush]

So you have so much PV capacity that you don't buy any energy, and the energy for the EV would have otherwise been wasted? That's unusual.

No Brian, and yes, its the argument for people that tell me Im still burning non-renewables in the form of coal.

The solar Array is generating Electricity every day (up to 5kw) and the Grid pays me more for what I generate during the day, than what I pay to buy it back at off peak rates at night , and I only charge the car once every few days, at Night.

The charger is 3.3kw so even if I plug it in during the day its still getting all its power for free unless its a cloudy day.

Of course I sometimes use more than that & still pay for electricity for the pool heater , clothes dryer, milling machine & stuff , its just the car thats free wink wink .

If we go away for a winter as often is the case the PV keep generating and builds up a credit, so yes a lot of the time we have excess electricity, but it dosen't go to waste, someone else is paying us for the use of it.

All in all yes, The car costs nothing to run.