Are there companies yet that will convert a gasoline-powered car to battery power? (deep-cycle ,,, Lithium-ion ,, Duracell AA's,,,, whatever).

Not interested in debating the larger issues,, technical problems,,, or whether it's worth it or not,,,,,, just wondering if anyone had any info. or links about companies already doing this.

Cheers

If you give me enough money, I'll start such a company tomorrow.

This pretty much defines your opportunities at this point.

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Kent Christensen
Albuquerque
'07 GL320CDI, '10 CL550. '01 Porsche Boxster
Two BMW motorcycles

Ah well. You think someone will do this soon? Seems to me (from what the Tesla folks are always spouting) that the technology is good to go.

I'd certainly consider it for one of my w124's,,,, especially if the feds offer a decent tax incentive.

I reckon that the kind of person that would do this properly for an older Benz will be one of the nerds from this board anyway.

There is no tax incentive for an electric car which ever had a conventional engine. It has to start out life as an electric car. You're out of luck on that angle.

It's quite a bit of work. At the college we converted a Ford Ranger to battery power for a campus security vehicle. There was another guy that had a battery powered bmw 2002. Very cool. I'll see if I can put you in touch with anybody.

Hardest part would be sourcing the batteries for a good price, everything else is readily available.

Damn that's cool,,, I assume those were deep-cycle lead/acid type batteries?

I could live with a 150 miles-on-a-single-charge deal with my Cabriolet. I keep hearing phrases like 'torque monster' associated with battery-powered cars,,, I would like a big bag of that on my 300ce please.

This is not a very silly question. However, you will probably get better answers in the Open Discussion section, since this has nothing to do with tech support of Mercedes. Any way, there are lots of sites about making or buying electric cars. You can search google for "ev cars" or "electric cars". Here are a couple: www.evworld.com, www.evconvert.com

Mike

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1998 C230 330,000 miles (currently dead of second failed EIS, yours will fail too, turning you into the dealer's personal human cash machine)
1988 F150 144,000 miles (leaks all the colors of the rainbow)
Previous stars: 1981 Brava 210,000 miles, 1978 128 150,000 miles, 1977 B200 Van 175,000 miles, 1972 Vega (great, if rusty, car), 1972 Celica, 1986.5 Supra

Thanks for those links Mike. Very interesting stuff,,, lots of DIY'ers out there doing conversions on smaller cars. Guess it will be a few years before a conversion will be viable for a whale like my 124.

Let's change silly to totally economically unfeasible and highly impractical.

The reasons are obvious.

Steve