Edit: Never mind, I was wrong. See post #8 for details. Sorry.
I thought it was weird that there are lots of fully custom (ICE) cars, and lots of cars converted to electric, but no fully custom electric cars (starting with welding up a custom frame). I think I now better understand why.
If I make something with two wheels, I can build basically anything I want, because motorcycles aren't very regulated. If I build something with three wheels, I can make anything I want, because that's legally a motorcycle.
If I build something with four wheels, and an old gasoline engine, I can make anything I want, because that gets titled based on the year of the engine.
And I think that's all great.
But if I build something with four wheels, and no internal combustion engine, I need to comply with the same laws as commercial automobile manufacturers, for the current year. Complicated things like air bags.
Which *effectively* makes it impossible to make a completely custom electric car.
Which is terrible, if you care about making things, and reducing emissions.
I could build what I want with an old gasoline engine, but that seems like a huge step backward. I'd rather fix the laws.
What do we want the laws to actually be? I feel like one of the simpler options would be to require custom built electric cars to comply with the same laws as cars built with a T Bucket frame. That looks like 1927.
(I'm not sure how much this varies by state, I'm in New Hampshire.)