Simplification (Almost) Railroaded by DIY Electric Truck

[Blogger warning: this one's a rambler.]

I fell off the wagon this week. I may need a new 12-stepper.

Proof that there are people who complete EV Truck Conversions

The summer of 2017, for me, is to be the Summer of Simplification. What that means is LESS by whatever means necessary. I scaled back on the gardening this year. I've been blogging less. I have lots of stuff up for sale. (Let me know if you're in the market for an old Vespa or two, an electric convertible, a half-finished electric truck project, a bicycle or several, my old high-school hot rod, or a whole bunch of Star Wars toys I've had since 1978.) It's a year to clear out the garage, get rid of some debt, and to try to find a way to stress less and live more.

A really big part of the SoS plan is to not acquire or create any new projects. (We all have our vices, and dreaming up and investing in new projects seems to be mine. Completing projects - that's not my vice.)

So, I've quit buying parts, bikes, and how-to manuals. I've quit going to swap meets, flea markets, and garage sales. I spend less time on Instructables. I try to shop only in places that offer food and the absolute necessities. I've even been steering clear of construction dumpsters. I've been really good up until a few days ago...

I was riding home from work on the mountain bike Tuesday and I wanted to add a (very) little terrain to the commute. I rode down a few alleys. And there in the middle of town sitting in the weeds outside of a backyard fence - a little 1939 Dodge pickup. Drool. Slobber. Yearn. Back when I was looking at vehicles to convert to electric, early American pickups made a lot of sense, and snagit, they're so cool!

So I remembered this electrified Dodge truck:

Click here to check it out

 

All I'd have to do is steal the motor and transmission out of this unfinished project I have lying around (and should probably sell).

Then I hopped on Craigslist to see if anything similar was for sale. Nope. But I did find this little guy:

 

The little Courier would make a great electric truck, it's here in town, and it costs about the same as a Sondors electric bike (which is still not in the Mesquite Hugger SoS budget).

 

While I had $800 1974 Ford conversion candidates on the brain, I went back and checked out the 1974 Econoline:

 

 

But I talked myself back out of it pretty quickly and moved on to early International Scouts and then back to the Courier and then back to the old Dodge and back to my original unfinished Mazda project which then brought to mind the unfinished Silver Pigeon scooter projects...

 

And now, I am worn out, but I'm back on the wagon and trying to get rid of stuff, ride the bike, and get life down to a simpler place.

 

May you finish what you start and may your wisely-chosen green projects benefit us all.

My Dream EV - My Wife's Nightmare

My greatest EV dream is a small, street-legal, electric truck. I'd happily settle for a small hybrid truck.

Apparently, my wife married a man with odd tastes. I used to drive a less shiny version of this:

Ford Econoline Pickup

And I think this is cooler than the Batmobile:

The '59 El Camino - so cool

And I have wanted one of these since I was 10 years old:



Subaru Brat

Do you see a pattern evolving here? But you may have noticed that I went through a radical conversion a few years back. The conversion has to do with finding ways to drastically reduce the damage we are doing to the planet that supports us. So now my dream vehicles burn little or no gas (or diesel or propane). I keep hoping Nissan will offer up a battery powered small truck...

El Leaf-amino? Ranchero Leafo? Leaf-Brat?

...or Toyota will pry out a Prius pickup, but it just doesn't seem to be happening. Sigh...

Prius Tote

So there I was browsing through Ebay this week when I saw a version of what I've been hoping for: a slug-bug electric truck!

The bed does seem a bit shallow.

It's definitely out of my price range.

It looks like it's a 96 volt, lead-acid battery setup and has about a 25-mile range. More  importantly, it's PDC - pretty dang cool! But I can hear my wife, "I don't get it. It can't decide if it's a car or a truck. It needs to be one or the other."

But love is blind - she told me a few weeks ago that she'd love me even if I brought home an old Ford Ranchero. Yep, she loves me!

If only it were electric. Sigh... (Find it here.)

May you haul your stuff greenly, funkily, and joyfully! (And may your baby love you, too!)

An Electric Vehicle I am Even More Excited about! (Big Rig!) UPDATED

[Well, Snagit all to Midland! If it sounds too good to be true... Steve Hanley on Gas2 printed a follow-up story today that shows this story is probably a falsehood. I apologize for relaying the info without further research. Hold onto the dream, y'all! Oakridge Battery Breakthrough Appears to Be Vaporware]

 

Today's electric truck news is even bigger than this!

Yesterday I posted about the Morgan EV3, which is a work of art and a dream come true and lots of stuff like that. Unfortunately, it's also a rich man's toy that will get driven once in a great while and will make very little positive environmental impact. (But it is nice to dream.)

So let's head in the other direction. Maybe something hyper practical that can make a huge positive impact...

How about a big, electric, made-in-the-USA truck that can haul 80,000 pounds and has a 400 mile range? Yep, that'd do it.

Freedom Trucking of Minnesota is working with Oakridge Global Energy Solutions of Florida to create just such a truck. Freedom hopes to run these trucks  from Minneapolis to Chicago daily beginning later this year. This is huge! Replacing big truck diesel-powered miles with electron-powered miles could drastically reduce our carbon release. If the trucking company embraces solar charging, the impact could be even greater.

For you locals, this truck could run from Lubbock to Dallas with battery power to spare. Just two of those trips could have more positive impact on the environment than a full year of me riding a bike to work while leaving the car at home. Huge, I tell you! I am ready to see cash for clunkers on big rigs! We could have us a convoy of mean, clean, and green!

If you want to learn more, check out this article from Steve Hanley on Gas 2.

May this convoy get started and may we all breathe easier!

Vintage Electric Car in Mister Rogers' 'hood!

Blogging for me is one step closer to a 25-year dream that I have clung to - the PBS life. I have watched guys like Rick Steves (travels in Europe with an all access pass), John Viehman (mountain biking the Great Divide, kayaking rapids, and sea kayaking with orcas), and Bob Phillips (driving around Texas talking to crazy interesting people) navigate lives that any overactive brain would kill for on the PBS or [plug in your favorite adventure travel channel] sponsor budget. And these guys have one thing in common - they are boring guys living exciting adventures. I want to live the PBS life!

Today, I found another example of the PBS-life adventure in a very unlikely locale - Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood. Green Car Reports featured an episode of MRN where Mr. Rogers visited an electric car factory, Electric Vehicle Industries, and was allowed a test drive. From the accents, I'm thinking the cars were built in Massachusetts or thereabouts. The episode aired in 1981. I found myself on youtube right away. Oh, the envy! (I tried to tour the Zero Motorcycle factory once, but I never had much luck communicating with them. Life has been much less frustrating since I sold my Zero.)

Mr. Rogers Electric Vehicle and Divorce (complete episode from youtube)

The vehicles in the show were powered by 16 lead-acid batteries (96 volts) driving a GE motor coupled with a front-wheel-drive transaxle. Very ugly-cool machine. Ironically, the episode deals with divorce, electric cars, and excessive airplane fuel consumption. If I brought this particular car home, my wife might consider jumping on a plane and filing for divorce. (Just kidding - my wife is entirely too supportive of my ugly electric car obsession.) Mr. Rogers even talks about how cool an electric airplane would be.

May your neighborhood be filled with people who care enough to drive electric!

Electric BMWs in the LBK? Or, Financial Planning for Idjets!

So last week you may have read a Mesquite Hugger post about the vehicles and such I would buy if I had the money for a Tesla Model S. (By the way, I saw a Model S at the Vine on Friday night.) Well, Sunday morning I received a text from Ben. The text contained a photo of an exotic electric car here in our dusty town. (Ben loves exotic cars and has an appreciation for electric cars. And he is great to snap a pic anytime he sees one. He has supplied us with photos of a few Model S's, a Tesla Roadster, a Ford Fusion Energi PHEV, and various other cool stuff lately.)

Ben's pic of an i8 spotted here in Lubbock

 

By our count, that makes three electric BMWs in town - two i3's and this i8.

The cool but vastly less sexy i3

 

The i8 is BMW's answer to the Tesla, and outside of Tesla land, it is one of the more impressive electric cars out there, but it still burns some gasoline and costs twice what a Model S costs. Twice!

So, I will do the shorter version here with lots of changes because I've had time to think:

If I had the Money for a BMW i8, I'd...

...try to talk the wife into a used Volt. Neither of us are Chevy fans, but it really is hard to beat the Volt for price, reliability, and range if you are looking at plug-in hybrids. And, they are good looking cars. $15,000. (With the balance we save from buying the Fusion PHEV, we could pay for some education she has been wanting.)

...pay off the fabulous young woman's college!

...put $20,000 into the little brother's college savings account.

...pay someone to complete my electric Mazda pickup project for my daily runabout and invest in a high-powered generator to make it capable of long-distance travel. I would keep our junky old Dodge Ram for bigger hauls, but drive it as little as possible. (Since I don't have the money or time fantasized about in this post, the Mazda is going up for sale in my attempt to cut back on unrealistic [for me] projects.)

...finish both Silver ElectroPigeons. (Woohoo!)

...go solar! Our home would be very green and Lubbock Power and Light could stop burning coal and natural gas on our behalf!

...put $15,000 into starting something similar to Good Karma Bikes here in the Hub City. (Thanks, diybiking.com!)

That should leave about $20,000 for retirement and a nice long vacation.

OR

...forget all of the previous plans and move to Costa Rica where I could compose blog posts in the sand on the beach and share fabulous sunsets with my wife!

May your dorky green plans come true!

 

Vintage + Electric Conversion = Droolworthy e-Truck

I like old stuff.

I like environmentally friendly stuff.

I like recycled stuff.

So I really like to see when somebody takes an old gas-powered thing and turns it into a revitalized electric thing. VW's, Corvairs, Minis, minibikes, scooters, motorcycles, lawnmowers - all of these have inspired Mesquite Hugger posts. I have even converted a minibike and a scooter, and I have two more scooters that I hope to convert some time in the next decade. The idea of vintage cool combined with modern efficiency - just wow!

And I really like to see old trucks being converted. They are plentiful, light, easy to access, reasonable to restore, and snagit, they are cool.

Photo from the build blog

A 1935 Chevrolet truck showed up on EVAlbum today, and it fits the bill on all counts. It even looks bone stock - until you look under the hood. It has a lithium-iron-phosphate battery pack and maintains a great deal of the original running gear, including the original transmission. Here is the build blog so that you can learn more about it.

My 1935 Chevy Pickup Restoration and EV Conversion Project

May you be inspired to go green and to do so in retro style!

If you like this post, here are a few similar posts:

Stealthified Vintage Ram!

It's been a while since MH posted an Electric VW...

Some of MH's favorite scooter - moped - minibike e-conversions

Minipost: A Tale of Two Vans

It was the best of vans. It was the worst of vans. That blue beast-box is my last van - a 1961 Ford Econoline. I miss it a great deal - in theory.

In reality, it handled terribly, had poor brakes, smelled always of gas and exhaust, was hard to see out of, was incredibly hot/cold/noisy inside, and it liked to overheat. I bought it for myself on my 40th birthday. I kept and drove it for five years. It now lives in Paris - Paris, Texas that is.

I had grand plans for the EconoBox. I wanted to two-tone it in torquoise and white. And I wanted to convert it to electric. It had lots of virtues as an electric donor, especially if I built it for town speeds and not for highway travel. It was light, simple, and had lots of room for batteries. And it had a roof that could accommodate a fair amount of solar power. No more than I drive, it could have been a self-powered machine.

And it was a really great way to meet people - everyone loved that thing. And everyone had a story or a dream that somehow involved a similar van. It could have been a great electric vehicle ambassador!

But I have come to a harsh reality over the last few years - I am a blogger, not a do-er, so I sold the van to a Paris guy who had dreamed of owning one for 20 years.

All of that was just to say that I really like funky electric vans.

Luke's 1980 Jet Electravan

On evalbum.com today I saw an Electravan that is pretty cool and that I would love to drive and all that good stuff, but the reason I wanted to share it with you is to offer you the same chuckle I had when reading its seating capacity:

5 people or 15 clowns. I just built a 
seatback to make the battery box into a 
back seat. Apparently this was a 
factory option. Had 3 skinny people 
back there yesterday and they said it 
was fine. 3 skinnies can squeeze 
across the front too, but it is trouble 
for shifting/emergency brake. With a 
smaller battery box it could be 
configured for 3 rows of seats for 
small people. Which would be 
hilarious.

The moral of this story - maybe funky electric van drivers are just as much fun as funky electric vans.

May your green transportation fill you and others with mirth - that would definitely explain electric car designs such as the Leaf and MiEV.

Ps. That van has the same size tires as my Vespa - it is tiny!

Stealthified Vintage Ram!

Nothing new here:
I love vintage vehicles.
I love electric vehicles.
I love vintage electric vehicles.

Apparently, many of you do too.

{{Warning - Blogger Chases-a-Rabbit Paragraph}}
Mesquite Hugger is my first attempt at blogging. One thing that was a nice surprise for me as a beginning blogger was being able to look at basic stats on visitors to the blog. I can see how many page views there are each day, where people are finding the blog, which country the readers are located in, and other basic info like that. (Someone from Réunion read an entry recently. I had to look the country up and read the Wiki. Now I want to go there! MH also has a surprising number of vsits from the Ukraine. Who knew?)

A surprise runaway post lately is one I wrote back in April. There was little interest in it when I posted it, but it has developed a second life lately. It has had 30 views in the last month, which is really heavy traffic for this little ol' blog from Lubbock. It deals with vintage scooter, moped, and minibike EV conversions that I have admired. The rat rod bikes and bike trailers also get more views than the average posts, as do posts about electric VWs.

So, today when I ran across a Gas 2 post about a Kentucky man who  converted his '39 Dodge Pickup to be an electric with range and speed capabilities very similar to a Nissan Leaf. I knew you would be as excited to learn more about it as I was. Snagit, this thing is cool!!!

Why is Lexington man's 1939 Dodge pickup so quiet? Its secret may surprise you

Pickups from this era are great candidates for conversion - light weight, sturdy frames, easy access for working, inherent coolness and inherent function. Plus, it's hard to beat a Ram hood ornament!

May your recycled green transportation be this cool too!