ApocalypsEV-1 for Transportation Independence

Intro: ApocalypsEV-1 for Transportation Independence

My name is Kenny and with the help of my brother Michael, I have been working hard to make electric vehicles the key to American transportation independence. As an engineering graduate student, my enthusiasm for electric vehicles stems from the unbeatable reliability of electric motors, which have only one or two moving parts compared to more than 40 in a gasoline engine. My brother, a physicist, was drawn to electric cars as a way to reduce fuel consumption.

However, despite our interest neither of us has owned a street legal electric vehicle because we cannot afford a commercially available one. Case in point the $30,000 Nissan Leaf, which would sell for closer to $20,000 if it were a gasoline model, is hard to justify. Due to current battery limitations, we expect that most households would buy an electric car as a secondary vehicle for in town use if they were cheap enough - keeping their gasoline vehicles for longer trips and heavy hauling. Cheap electric vehicle for basic errands and short commutes, which account for the majority of automotive wear and fuel expenses, would provide independence from costly driving for almost everyone.

Determined to achieve the fun, affordability, and reliability that comes with transportation independence we have been prototyping cheap electric vehicle concepts since 2009 and formed ApocalypsEV (www.ApocalypsEV.com) as a way to bring these concepts to life and make them available to the American public. Our current ambition is to create our first street-legal vehicle, the ApocalypsEV1. While “more Mad Max than Mercedes-Benz”**, the ApocalypsEV-1 promises to deliver low cost electric driving in a $5-$8K street-legal ATV design. After the ApocalypsEV-1, we have ambitions to create an apocalypse ready electric roadster in the style of the 1920s grand touring car and a utility vehicle that is available in a van or truck configuration. All the vehicles will aim for a sub $20k price tag.

If we win the $25K, it would give us the funding required to make the ApocalypsEV-1 prototype a reality. Not only will this allow us to find the resource we need to start production of the ApocalypsEV-1; it will also kick-start our efforts to make the know-how required for the production of affordable electric vehicles available via YouTube and Instructables so that anyone can follow our lead. Between our efforts and those of others inspired by us we hope to create the momentum needed to make mass-produced affordable electric vehicles a reality so everyone can live freely and drive independently.

**http://jalopnik.com/5841732/why-were-building-a-post+apocalyptic-electric-car

Comments

[astral_mage]

dont 4 get to put a wood gasifier gen set on the back as well.

[The nerdling]

noooooo youtubes blocked at school cant see the vid.
can you make a step by step ible?

[Mechtechnal]

To give you the nutshell version, we want build build electric vehicles that offer independence from constantly breaking down and costly to fuel gasoline vehicles. Except unlike other electric vehicle manufactures who seem to have forgotten " that in general, people who want to save fuel also want to save money"*.  We want to make electric vehicles whose #2 priority is to be affordable (only $5-$8K); the #1 priority of course being a design that is tough enough to survive an Apocalypse and fast enough to outrun zombies.

*http://blogs.wsj.com/drivers-seat/2010/07/28/chevy-volt-are-electric-cars-too-expensive/ affordable