Good use of $6K

Lets think back to when you were 16 years old. What were you doing? Perhaps getting your license. Maybe trying to beg your parents to get you a car so you can be the coolest kid in your high school. Whatever it is you were doing, it probably involved driving or wanting to drive and usually...and more likely than not, it wasn't through productive means.

16 year old Andrew Angelloti had a part-time stint as a lifeguard and managed to save up $6000. Instead of spending it on a wardrobe or maybe even a car, the eco-minded Angelloti (a forum member of Ecomodder) used that money to convert his 1988 Mazda pickup truck to run solely on electricity. The modifications allow the car to reach a top speed of 55 mph and can go about 40 miles per charge. It uses 20 flooded lead-acid batteries (120 volts), and a 60 HP, 9-inch electric motor.

Since this conversion, he's been fine tuning the truck here and there to have it be the finest electricity-ran truck it can be. He's dropped the front of the truck a few inches which he says has "....managed to pick up an extra 3-4 mph in third gear since the drop." What's even more impressive is that he says, "And this is all just in time for my truck to tick over the magic 1000 mile mark. That's right, I now have 1000 gas-free, quiet miles on this machine. I have about 500 on it since the motor rebuild, as well. So far, that's 40 gallons of gas I didn't have to buy!" Pretty impressive not just for a 16 year old but for any kind of project.

What's next in store for this kid? Well, he just purchased a 1992 Toyota Tercel a few months ago and is looking to flex his creativity muscles by placing a larger motor in this car in hopes that it develops more speed. You can read more about his Mazda truck and his new project the Tercel at his blog, Greenflight EV.







On a side note, our website is officially finished! We're simply working out some necessary kinks here and there in order to provide you with the best finishing product we can once it is released in a few weeks. In celebration, we are having a huge bash on February 17th at V20 in Long Beach, CA and we urge all the readers of this blog to make it out to this event because we have some tricks up our sleeves ;) Here is the flyer:





Thanks for your support everyone,

Rack of Lam