As a lover of all vehicles, it doesn’t really matter to me if something is a Ford, a GM, an AMC, a Mitsubishi, a Trabant, a Bentley, snowblower, whatever – they’re all desirable in my world. It’s the same exact idea with how they move down the road. Are they gas-powered? Great! Diesel? Yes, please. Are they battery-powered? Gimme-gimme! I like anything and everything. It’s like pizza, just so there aren’t black olives on it I’m for anything. This is one of the most unusual vehicles that I have seen in a while in how it meets almost every criteria that I want in a vehicle. It’s a 1987 Chevrolet El Camino EV. Yep, it’s battery-powered! And it has a way to haul motorcycles in the back. It’s located in paradise, better known as San Diego, California and it can be found on eBay with a current (cough) bid of just over $4,000.
“By the beard of Zeus”, as the great San Diego anchorman, Ron Burgundy, would say – this thing is cool! Ok, we know that a lot of you aren’t into battery-powered anything, even your razors are diesel-powered, but some of us like EVs and there is absolutely no question what so ever that they’re going to play a huge future in our… future. So why not have something like a 31-year old El Camino that runs on battery power? Who’s with me? I say, who’s with me?
The seller, who isn’t the owner, says “Over $30,000 invested in this El Camino. Been a daily driver for the last 5 years.” Ahhh.. living in San Diego and daily driving a battery-powered ’87 El Camino, life is good. Unfortunately, the battery life isn’t good and they say that the “battery pack has finally died. Should be the only thing this car needs. Roughly $4500 for a brand new battery pack. About 40 miles on a charge.” Ouch, neither of those things you or I wanted to hear. The range anxiety is one of two things that always come up with EVs, the other is “Yeah, yeah, yeah, but.. you’re burning coal to get the electricity to charge your batteries…”
After throwing down $4,500 for new batteries, here’s where you’ll sit when you enjoy driving around in this El’ectric Camino. I recently had an ’84 El Camino Conquista on my radar and was talking with the owner about seeing it, but it was a few hours away and I never got a chance to see it before the listing went away. I really regret that but this one would be even better. Of course, once a person adds cross-country shipping charges onto a non-running vehicle and another $4,500 in new batteries you’re talking about some serious money. That would be $10,000 right off the bat, but you’d have the only one in town, or in your state, or on the planet.
Zinnnnnng! This ain’t no SBC, this is an “EVnetics 1000 amp. controller. 48 Calb 180 AH Life Po4 cells, 11″ Netgain Electric motor dbl shaft, soft start Potentiometer Throttle, Controller cooling pump and reservoir, electric Power steering, Electric Power brakes, Clean Air Battery Mgmt System,Electric Tach, Speedometer Vac. gauge and voltmeter, 200V dc to 12v dc converter, 12V dc to 110v AC converter,12V one wire alt,” No really, that’s what it is. Our own Jamie Palmer has been saddled with the unenviable task of storing a 1988 Subaru GL sedan for me for the last two years, one that was converted to battery power by a North Carolina tech college. I think that if I would have gotten this El’ectric Camino instead he could have been using it as a parts runner for his fleet or for his race cars. I really like these interesting EV conversions but I’m guessing that I’m alone with that sentiment here. Any thoughts on this El’ectric Camino?
This is nothing more than a novelty car. $4500.00 for lead acid battaries $15000.00 to $20000.00 for lithium ion batteries. Range is dismal as would the charge time be. You know when you drive a modern electric your not paying for your fuel costs until you need new battaries than you pay in spades. So trade it in you say you still pay in depression. I have an electric bicycle that is soon in need of a new battery $200.00 for a cheep low rate battery $700.00 for a good high rate battery. This is what ev drivers aren’t realizing its next to free until you need new batteries. Also as Scotty pointed out how about all that coal that has to be burned to charge the batteries how many brown outs will there be when we are all hooked on these EV’s and when there are millions of these on the road what are we going to do with all those spent batteries. The final question I have is how long will the lithium supple last when we’ve powered up millions of cars. From what I’ve read there are only a few known places on earth where there is the raw materials can be mined. Tesla has big ownership in one of them, can we say manopily? The fact is we need to work harder on making fossil fueled engines more efficient as well as making mass transit more available. In Europe and Japan they use bullit trains not much effort in that direction on this side of the pond. We have our trucks and SUVs and no will. Ford doesn’t even want to build small cars anymore. What a big dog wagging the tail load of crap we are being fed JUST MY HUMBLE Opinion.
Well we can say monopoly, but you can’t spell it.
Hear wi Go agin wit da spelin polece. If I commented on every time I see a grammar mistake or spelling error that’s all I’d write about. So you dont like what I have to say so you attack my spelling well aren’t you just the hero…..!!! I guess I have to ask do you have a perfect record of every single post being perfect I doubt it. Even the staff writers make grammar and spelling mistakes so get off your high horse mister perfect. Guys like you really pi$$ me off.
So what do we do when there IS no fossil fuel to burn, burn the remaining trees on the planet? Eventually we will just have to bite the bullet of maturing and refining alternative means of fuel in order to reduce costs and improve efficiencies. Did it with fossil fuel, we will need to do it with the next solution or learn to just walk everywhere..
I once herd an Arab prince say my grand father rode a camel, my father drove a car, I fly a jet. My son will ride a camel. Profound words from an oil man. Did it every occur to you that somewhere down the line in the future that we might have to go back to old methods of transport that predate the car. In many countries most common people already do. Ev cars are a diversion we still have to use fossil fuels to generate energy. Or we could build more dams which have had a very negative impact on the ego system. Or maybe more wind farms where thousands of wild birds are killed off each year. Solar panals that’s it except they don’t work that well on a cloudy day and are only a supplement. I once watched a documentary that showed what would happen if tomorrow there was no oil. In 10 year 60% of the worlds population would starve to death and in 20 years small local economies would emerge and thrive. Everything has a shelf life including us. Ev cars do not work in harmony with nature there a con job making a small group of people rich rant over.
Electricity isn’t free for most people, either. In fact, in our area, the rates make gas rather competitive…without the range and charging issues.
I don’t see electric vehicles as a solution, as existing electrical infrastructure won’t support EVs in every laneway. They are in one sense, what diesels were years ago…an alternative for specific driving habits, but not for everyone. Their use will grow, if subsidies continue on them, but if buyers have to pay the full freight I believe the novelty wears off quickly.
One more thing how about cold climate regions where the batteries can lose up to 40% of their efficiency.
Yes, and how about the cold climates requiring a heater?
How’s that work?
Never cared for these car based pickups and For sure Dont care about electric vehicles !!
Max… Ya better catch up to the times…they are a’changin’!
Times can change all they want to.
That doesn’t mean I am going to drive an electric car, or even one that drives itself.
It’s a shame no lithium bats.
We have a new prime with lithium bats.
It’s great and quiet and rocks on mpg!
Prius Prime is the name of the 2017 plug-in version of Toyota’s iconic hybrid, and it offers a lot more than just extended EV-only range and distinctive styling over its non-plug-in cousin. That extra EV range works out to an easily achievable 25 miles, there are multiple driving modes including a Recharge mode that uses the engine to replenish the battery, a distinctive and user-friendly interior that includes a huge 11.6-inch touch-screen display in some models, and a price that actually undercuts the standard Prius after tax incentives. It’s a nice-driving, comfortable and quiet alternative to cars like the Chevrolet Volt and Ford C-Max Energi and beats both on price, with a name that’s still the gold standard in hybrid circles.
With the rebate it was awesome and with the wife round trip of 30 to work it’s about a quarter to drive !
Hybrids and electric are the future !
Paris and UK banning fuel cars and Volvo gets it as it dropped in near future all gas models .
USA will be left swinging in the wind wearing MAGA hats as we dream we’re back in time with head in sand 😮
And it sounds like Toyota is helping you pay for it.
The rebate comes from the Federal Government.
Without that nobody would buy an electric car.
It’s a Prius. It’s not a “car.”
Once a car, now an appliance.
An appliance that will smoke the highest performance gasoline based car. A Tesla will beat any Ferrari, Lambo or Porsche in the 1/4 mile drag race. It also has the range of the average family car, in excess of 340 miles. In the old days of nitro powered radio controlled boats, they were the allmightly. Now, lithium Ion powered electric boats just chased them from the record books.
Who knows what it will Really be like in another thirty to forty years from now, maybe longer off. We are still in the tin lizzy horse and buggy stages when it comes to the next great personal/family transportation. Ha, don’t ridicule me too quickly, everyone thought those cars from the nineteen’s and twenties were so modern, how could it get any better, right? We’re not there yet when it comes to putting the old horse out to pasture, not quite.
As far as this El Camino goes, well ,uh…I have absolutely no idea what the author was describing.
Scotty, if you have your heart set on a Conquista, I might just let my ’83 go if you catch me at the right moment.
Yes, and how about the cold climates requiring a heater?
How’s that work?
Leaving aside the argument of how many angels can dance on the head of a pin (ie whether we will run out of fossil fuels, the cost of fossil fuels, the pollution they obviously cause, the cost of that pollution ad infinitum), I’d love to have this with the battery set up from a Tesla.
I know some folks whose opinion I respect who remove the battery packs from wrecked Teslas ( and theres lots of them it seems) and they think they are state of the art. Of course being a flat battery pack it would probably take up the whole bed of the Conquista.. That said maybe you can pull the body from the chassis and figure out a way to install a Tesla pack.then you might have something
OK, OK, I can’t resist, I looked at the tailgate and thought, he didn’t finish it….
“It’s ELECTRIC, Boogie, Woogie, Woogie, Woogie!!”
I’ll take my leave now, LOL!! :-)
so many naysayers today, technology will win the day! Just to set the bird story on it’s wing…don’t believe stuff you hear from folks who want to send us back to smoggy LA circa 1968:
“A 2009 study using US and European data on bird deaths estimated the number of birds killed per unit of power generated by wind, fossil fuel and nuclear power systems.
It concluded:
wind farms and nuclear power stations are responsible each for between 0.3 and 0.4 fatalities per gigawatt-hour (GWh) of electricity while fossil-fuelled power stations are responsible for about 5.2 fatalities per GWh.
That’s nearly 15 times more. From this, the author estimated:
wind farms killed approximately seven thousand birds in the United States in 2006 but nuclear plants killed about 327,000 and fossil-fuelled power plants 14.5 million.
In other words, for every one bird killed by a wind turbine, nuclear and fossil fuel powered plants killed 2,118 birds.”
much more info http://theconversation.com/wind-farms-are-hardly-the-bird-slayers-theyre-made-out-to-be-heres-why-79567
LD71 :D