Texas Teen Builds Electric Car

SAN ANTONIO (AP) -- The sky-high cost of gasoline has major auto manufacturers racing to build battery-powered cars that can be charged from household outlets.

Then there's 17-year-old Lucas Laborde, who plans to drive to high school this fall in an electric car he built in his father's shop in San Antonio.

Laborde, known as "Luke" to most of his family and friends, spent about 150 hours over the summer converting a gas-powered car to battery power. When it's finished, the car can be certified as street-legal with a state inspection.

"I've test-driven it around the block," says Laborde, a senior at the International School of the Americas. "But there's a couple of things to fix, like the windshield wipers. Then we'll get it inspected."

Laborde's father, Ralph, bankrolled the project and provided some technical training and assistance.

"I showed him how to use a grinder, a SawzAll and a drill and stuff like that," says the father, who owns River City Hydraulics Inc., a hydraulics maintenance and repair company near downtown San Antonio. "He just went to town on it."

Companies such as GM and Ford have spent several years and millions of dollars in an attempt to develop mass-produced battery-powered cars and hybrids, such as the recently announced Chevy Volt and an experimental, plug-in version of the Ford Escape.

Luke Laborde's electric car is based on a kit car known as a Bradley GT II. The Bradley conversions, built in the 1970s with chassis, engines and transmissions from VW Beetles, have Fiberglas bodies and futuristic styling, including gull-wing doors.

Ralph Laborde bought his son's Bradley on eBay for $5,000. The car only had a few thousand miles on it and its gas-burning, air-cooled and rear-mounted engine got between 32 and 35 miles per gallon. But the goal was to switch completely to electricity, so the father spent another $4,700 for electric conversion parts and $1,000 for batteries.

After that, creation of the car depended on Luke Laborde and his ingenuity. For instance, he found space for eight 80-pound batteries in several creative locations in the small vehicle, including the void left after removal of the fuel tank in the nose of the car.

But the batteries' collective weight caused another, unexpected problem: They have caused the car body to twist slightly, so the gull-wing doors don't completely close.

"I'm still working on that one," the teenager says with a grin.

The car's deep-cycle, 12-volt, lead-acid batteries are hooked up in series. They provide a total of 96 volts of current to an electric motor mounted in the reconstituted Beetle's trunk, where its gasoline engine used to reside. Gauges mounted on the car's instrument panel now include one for amperage to show how much current the electric motor is drawing and another one for voltage to let Laborde know when his batteries are running low.

The car uses the Bradley's original transmission, a manual four-speed, but the clutch is no longer needed to change gears. The car has a top speed of about 45 mph -- plenty fast for in-town commuting and lots of low-end torque.

The motor doesn't make any sound, but Laborde inadvertently makes the rear tires chirp when he steps on the accelerator a little too hard while backing the car out of his father's shop.

"It has a lot of power," he says sheepishly.

Laborde and his family live about a mile from his high school. He estimates that his car will be able to make about 20 round trips between charges.

A member of the golf team at ISA, Laborde is considering a career in sports business.

"But," he says wistfully, sitting behind the steering wheel of his electric car, "if this could take me somewhere, that would be nice, too."

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Home built EV 10/14/2008 12:15:00 PM I applaud his effort. I would like to know how he is controlling power. But making any car has the problem of meeting all of the stupid laws - I am not sure he's even legal with the 96v power. There are many EVs available RIGHT NOW they are just not legal!! We are even seeing some EV and super-economy vehicles comming in as 3-wheels because as "motocycles" they don't have to follow the same rules. Let's change the laws so we can have more of these vehicles as safer 4-wheel.
Home built e-car 10/14/2008 1:00:00 PM Leave it to American ingenuity! This kid and his father should establish a car company. Maybe the B-3 can learn a little from their approach.
Home built car 10/14/2008 2:34:00 PM The statement "96 volts of current" is incorrect. Current is expressed in amperes.
Volts do NOT measure current 10/15/2008 2:50:00 PM This is a great story. I have one complaint though. The article states the batteries provide "96 Volts of current". Current is NOT measured in volts. Current is measured in Amperes or AMPS for short. One ampere is defined to be the constant current which will produce an attractive force of 2×10–7 newton per metre of length between two straight, parallel conductors of infinite length and negligible circular cross section placed one metre apart in a vacuum.
not really that efficient 10/15/2008 4:58:00 PM 40 miles on a charge, with a top speed of 40mph. I wonder if he's taken the price of that electricity into account, and actually calculated his cost per mile. I'm pretty sure the original VW Beetle engine would be more efficient in just about every way. Then again, it sounds like he has it set up to be fast and not efficient... which is cool, but he could do the same by tossing a Chevy smallblock into that thing.
RE: Not really that efficient 10/17/2008 9:52:00 AM Don't mistake energy density or range for efficency. Batteries have a lower energy/weight ratio compared to petrol(gas). 1 gallon of gasoline = 125,000 Btu. 3413 British Thermal Units = 1 kilowatt-hour (kWh) Conversions to get energy in the same unit show that 1 gallon of petrol = 37 kWh At 0.06 cent/kWh the same amount of electrical energy as a gallon would cost $2.22. Electric motors are 80-90% efficient, vs internal combustion engine 20-37%. This means you waste about 70% of the gas, vs 15% of the electricity (Better add more waste in there for the drive electronics though - say 30% waste all up?). Petrol=$2.69(125000btu_/_1000_x_30%)=$0.072/1000_btu Electric=$0.06/(3413btu_/1000_x_70%)=$0.025/1000_btu Pretty much shows that on energy cost - electric wins. How often do batteries need replaced? Electricity is cheaper per BTU for a start, and the electric motor is more efficient. Power/weight suffers using batteries. One can use other battery technologies (Such as lithium) to improve this. When required ranges are short, and payloads are smaller, electric cars work.
fuel burning is much more efficient, right! 10/17/2008 9:57:00 AM even if it doesn't get a good comparative mileage per gallon, it is still an excellent thing to drive. if a 17y/o teen can do this in 20 days, car manufacturers can do a lot better (if they had any interest). and remember that you can charge batteries on solar power as well - which costs $0. how about that for an efficiency? i figure that he will have a LOT of problems getting past the inspection - and only because he beat the "system" and doesn't pay taxes for something that is supposed to be free - energy that is.
re: fuel burning is more efficient 10/17/2008 4:18:00 PM solar power is far from $0. there are very high initial costs involved, which you can't just throw out the window. (most solar energy conversion methods are also very inefficient, which means how much of the source's energy it can extract and use). electric cars are very cool indeeded,especially by a 17 year old, good job kid, now go get your engineering degree (you will love it). however nothing is free (and nothing comes without disadvantages). as far as the pollution aspect is concerned, you have to look to his local power source to get the comparasion (just because it dosen't emit pollution while in use dosen't mean the energy it is using didn't involve some release of pollution to create). remember electricity is not an energy source, it is an energy carrier. i love all the alternative energy applications emerging. but people, please don't fall into the politically trap that we solve all of our problems through this. the democrats are being very manipulative in a difficult time for americans. we MUST drill for our own oil. all this time we are talking about alternative this, and big oil that, we are still buying over 2/3 of our energy supply from other countries. it is irresponisble to not do everything we can to start satisfying our oil usage by ourselves. it is beneficial in every way: safer for the environment. when we buy it, some other country is extracting it and shipping it to us. first, america has the strictist environmental protection laws, whereas drilling anywhere else the laws are laxed (and its all the same planet). second majority of the negative enviornmental impacts happen during transporting over seas. if we drilled here it would be piped directly into our infastructure. please everyone, don't be tricked, we need to do this. (and still advance our alternative sources and start gradually changing over while the feasability gets there).
efficiency 10/17/2008 4:54:00 PM DaVinci's original 'Court Car' was a spring-driven contraption that should be emulated for urban electric car efficiency. The coil-spring as braking storage reservoir, controlled by computer and electric clutch, would unload the dead-start current burden from the battery with an extremely efficient unwinding spring. Electric bicycles with pedal-assist can double their range when start-up is exclusively human-power until the bike gets rolling then electric takes over.
re: fuel burning is more efficient 10/17/2008 5:13:00 PM "just because it dosen't emit pollution while in use dosen't mean the energy it is using didn't involve some release of pollution to create). remember electricity is not an energy source, it is an energy carrier. " I agree. "we MUST drill for our own oil." Waay off base here! No law currently requires that oil extracted from a given U.S.A. location be committed to processing or consumption in the US. Alsaskan oil is substantially shipped to Japan because it is relatively close, and modern two-hull tanker-ships are very efficient at carrying heavy loads long distances safely. It is the law of supply-and-demand at this time. Distillation is often in the Caribbean because the refineries were built during and after WWII to accommodate large volumes of crude for conversion to motor fuels, and have fewer environmental restrictions to protect the islands than the US requires for in-country refineries. New Orleans takes in lots of tonnage of refined product and runs it through the pipes to the midwest and eastern US. Quantities and refining costs of US extracted oil are simply not that attractive at this time to be very competitive with other geo-sources. Oil companies do not yet drill millions of leased acres of available fields for that reason. A grab for future options off-shore on the US coasts is primarily to lock-in future profits for the winning player-companies in this racket. There is also a now-forgotten argument that it is better to deplete the oil reserves of one's adversaries before one's own home-land in case of future war: whoever has tha last supply of oil is more likely to win, all other things equal.
safety 10/19/2008 8:47:00 PM I sure hope that they took into consideration the type of batter he used. That coul be for one nasty accident.
Seriously... 10/19/2008 9:45:00 PM Not to get anyone mad but instead of tearing this kid's achievement down with technicalities and opinions on what's more efficient, why don't you guys just congratulate him. What he did is pretty impressive. Good job Luke!
safety redux 10/20/2008 1:51:00 PM A Bradley GT is not a very crash-safe vehicle, in either gas or electric power mode. Still, I applaud him. I had plans to build an electric car in the 1970s but never got beyond the "plans" stage.
I'd Love To Know How To Contact Luke 10/30/2008 7:00:00 AM Congrats Luke! Keep it up kid...you are on to something more of us need to take an interest in. Would love to know what it would take to get my vehicle converted. I live in SA also..and need to plan something in the near future for a car purchase of some sort. If you get this message let me know if you'd be interested in working with me!
not the first 7/19/2009 3:08:00 PM I would like to commend this kid on doing something himself. However, I built an electric only Escort conversion in Odessa Texas some 5 years ago. It was covered by "Texas Country Reporter" and TV stations KWES and KOSA in Midland-Odessa . If it passes a vehicle inspection why worry about it. As to the cost to operate, I drove mine 845 miles per month to and from work at 65 MPH. It raised the electric bill 15 dollars per month. That is about 1.8 cents per mile! Remember, no tune ups, antifreeze, oil changes, exhaust system. I hope he gets his speed up.

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