[Greenbuilding] I gotcher donor car right here

[Kat]

Robert Tom wrote:
 > Wouldn't converting a Murrican truck to an electric vehicle be like 
trying  
 > to convert a McMansion to an energy-efficient/passive solar/healthy 
Green  
 > home ?
 
I don't think so - here's a quote from the Twike link below: "They [the 
Twike people] talk about "Grey energy" on their website, the amount of 
energy used to produce a vehicle, which in this case is 8,400 KWh,  
compared to 42,000 KWh for a conventional car."  There will be a point 
at which the energy used to run the car outweighs the energy used to 
produce the car - but I bet most electric vehicles (the Twike not 
included) use about the same amount of energy to produce as normal cars 
- if not more, if one goes with carbon-fiber blah blah blah etc 
fancy-schmantzy stuff.  A Chevy S-10 is a fairly light vehicle.  As long 
as you don't use old Hummers as your conversion cars, or Mercedes 
S-class boats... though.... check this out: 
http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/120/motorhead-messiah.html

 > I forget where I saw it  
 > but I recall having seen a three-wheeled, treadle-powered, 2-passenger  
 > enclosed vehicle that was capable of attaining speeds of something 
like 90  
 > kph. That should be fast enough for anybody.
 
Was it the Twike? http://www.ecogeek.org/content/view/1217/

-Kathleen