Regardless of what anybody tells you it is possible to build your own electric car. I'm going to outline the basic steps that are needed so that you have a basic understanding on how to build your own electric car. If you're thinking that it's going to be too hard and you won't be able to do it that's untrue. As long as you have some basic DIY skills and can hold a screwdriver you'll be able to achieve this.
The first step is finding which car you're going to convert. Many people use their own car, but some people go out and buy one because they want to successfully convert a car to electric for something to drive on short trips. With a range of around 200 miles most people only drive the electric car.
After you've decided which car you're going to use for the conversion it's now time to buy all of the parts you are going to need. The electric motor you are going to need should be at least 8 inches in length and less than 12 inches in length. Our goal is to reach highway speeds of 55MPH and this size of motor will allow you to reach that. Next in the list is 14 deep cycle 12 volt batteries. You can buy these... or you can get them for free. Many golf courses use electric golf carts, and those batteries are swapped out every two years or so as part of regular maintenance. By simply asking around you can find what you need for free. Lastly, you will need a charge controller, a potentiometer, and some nuts and bolts from your local hardware store.
To begin with you will need to hoist out the engine and transmission out of your car. It's quite a bit easier to do if you have a friend helping you so I suggest you ask one. The next step is to mount the motor to the drive shaft. This is quite easy as you can use existing mounts on the frame to mount the motor. After the motor is mounted it's time to stuff as many batteries under the hood as you possibly can. The rest of the batteries can be mounted in your trunk, but if you have a large enough hood they should all fit under it.
After those steps are completed it's simply a matter of hooking everything up. You will need to hook the charge controller in between your charging source and the batteries. The charge controller is used so that your batteries don't overcharge and explode. Next, you will need to hook the batteries up to one side of the potentiometer. This is used to control the amount of energy flowing to the motor so that you can control your speed. You will also need to mount the potentiometer up to the gas pedal. The last part is to hook up the other side of the potentiometer up to the electric motor. Lastly, simply cut the wire and hook this up to a switch (or key) so that you can turn the car on and off.
This is a simplistic overview, but it's not much harder than what I've described. It takes about two weekend to do, and saves you about 75% on gas every month. For me that turned into about $110 in savings.
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If you're interested in building your own electric car visit this website: Build Your Own Electric Car
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