The Electric Powered Hot Rod- Amped Up

As the cost of gasoline began to skyrocket last year and the public was bracing for the very real possibility of shelling out five bucks for every gallon of the stuff, alternative energy became the hot topic of conversation. While gas shortages and the price of a barrel of crude oil were making headlines once again, as always, the intensity of the furor seems to fluctuate with the price at the pump. When the price of gas came down, so did our collective level of anxiety. That's probably because most of us are comfortable with our gas-powered cars and don't really want to change our lifestyle. But there's another reason--there really haven't been any readily available, affordable alternatives. However, that may not be the case for much longer, given the efforts to produce practical electric cars.

While the general population is beginning to look at electric cars for everyday transportation, there are a number of electric vehicle enthusiasts who have been interested in them for some time and have gone to great effort to discover their performance potential. Roger Schroer's electric streamliner, the Buckeye Bullet, set a Bonneville record of 314.959 mph, Bill Dube's Killa-Cycle set the National Electric Drag Racing Association (NEDRA) motorcycle record with a 7.890 e.t. at 167.99 mph, and Dennis Berube's Current Eliminator V set the dragster record with a 7.956 e.t. at 159 mph. So it appears as though electric vehicles have performance potential, but what about street rods? Is there a practical application of electric power? Ken Koch of EV Consulting certainly thinks so.

Ken has been involved with electric vehicles (EVs) and conversions for over 20 years and now offers his advice and design services at EV Consulting. He interrupted construction of his twin-motored '34 Ford roadster long enough to give us an overview of EVs and his thoughts on building an electric street rod.

EV Basics By Ken Koch
Pure Battery-Powered Cars vs. Hybrids: Nearly all of the first electric cars were pure battery-powered. With their battery, electric motor, and a means of speed control, they were relatively simple. Hybrids are much more complex. Basically, hybrids add an engine and generator to the mix, and the car is run on a combination of motor, engine, small battery pack, and generator. With a series hybrid, an engine drives a generator, and that electrical output is connected directly to the battery that drives the motor that drives the wheels. With a parallel hybrid, the engine and generator pair is separated from the battery and motor pair. In this case, the car can be driven on engine power only, engine and motor, battery and motor, or a combination of all three. Sometimes the motor does double-duty as a generator. Plug-in hybrids are the same as parallel hybrids, except they carry a larger battery pack plus a battery charger that plugs in for recharging. The Toyota Prius hybrid, for example, carries a battery so small that it can be driven only about 7 miles on battery alone. Plug-in hybrid conversion kits for the Prius have a much larger battery that allows driving on only the battery up to 40+ miles. Having the larger battery in a plug-in hybrid allows much higher gas mileage, or zero consumption of gas if the driving scenario is within 40 miles. When you think about it, a 40-mile range is not so bad. Half the vehicles in the U.S. are driven 40 miles or less per day.