That should definatly save him money if it only costs him $1 to charge up the batteries from empty, and the cost of gas where he lives in $5. Just imagine if he got those lithium batteries...that would save him ALOT of money in the long run.

 

Sebba's correct for the timebeing - it'll take me a few years to recover that money. I could have done the conversion for about $2000 US but I would have ended up with a rubbish slow car. Electric cars have a really bad image so I wanted one that could do at least 85 mph and zip around town quickly.
I spent a lot so it'll probably take about 3 years or so for me to recover the money. Still, the more gas goes up, the faster it pays itself off. I don't have to spend money on oil, or servicing, spark plugs, air filters, timing belts, radiators, exhaust repairs etc which helps as well. I'll be selling my gas car in a month or so once the electric car's legal. I'll finally get rid of that giant Exxon Valdez oil stain on the drive too - well, that's a typical Nissan for ya.
[sm=smiley24.gif]

 

What about the battery replacement? By the time the car starts saving you money, its going to be time to change those f-uckers lol.

 

So from what you are saying Sebba is not right...it WILL save you money. From the way things are going the price of gas is going to keep on increasing, therefore it will be beneficial for you.

 

Yeah it will be beneficial financially. We'll save around $2800 a year in gas. It'll take a little while to pay the car off but I'm not worried about it. I just got tired of forking out $50 a week for gas. We only use the car for local city driving too which stinks.

We're gonna put that $50 in a jar each week instead of our gas car's tank. At the end of the year we'll empty the jar and take a holiday.
I mean, who wouldn't want to spend $2800 of gas money on something a bit more like this:


Instead of something.... like this:

Mind you, I reckon the price of gas isn't a problem for those guys!

 

i think id rather spend 2800 bucks to be part of that second pic lol

 

No **** right? lol Count me in for the second pic!! lol

The reason i said it, is because those batteries are not cheap. Im guessing that by the time the car has paid itself off, it will need them replaced. Am i wrong?

 

You're right about the batteries, I'll be looking at $2000 every 3 to 4 years to replace the battery pack with normal use.

 

There we go lol

 

I see what you're getting at Sebba but we'd still be winning overall in our situation with the cost of gas in NZ compared to running our gas car for another year.
In fact the gas car will only increase in running costs, whereas the electric car's costs will go down as I've been planning to build a wind generator above the garage to help charge the car. With the current fuel costs we end up with an equasion like this each year:

$2800 = Yearly amount we spend on gas each year (which constantly increases)
$250 = Yearly cost of the "6-month servicing" plus general maintenance for our gas powered car
-------
= $3050

verses:

$156 = Approx Electricity used to power car for a year
$500 = Yearly battery replacement cost (if replaced every 4 years)
------
= $656

That leaves us with around $2394 leftover in our "gas jar" each year which I think I could put to good use.
I've excluded the usual registration, brakes and tyre expenses from both cars as they're the same.
And don't get me wrong, I like gas cars. I've owned everything from a V8 Lexus to a Russian built off-roader but now that I'm old and boring I don't want to spend the money on gas anymore. It was either go electric, walk, or catch the bus. And bollocks to that idea.