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Don Price's 1980 Plymouth Horizon Electric Conversion
An EV all its life
The Story
I have wanted an EV for several years but as you know, it just didn't fit at the time. Then in Feb. of '03 I made my mind up to get an EV (with the boss's approval of course). I was very surprised when she said, " I don't care life is too short, enjoy". So with this blessing I started looking in every EV want ads I could find. My quest was short lived. One week after I started to look I found a new ad in the South bay want ads. It was just what I was looking for. I called and made arrangements to go see the car. Saw the EV and drove it on the 22nd of Feb. and bought the car. Came home and made arrangements to rent a truck and dolly and returned on the 27th. to bring it home. I would have driven it but it didn't have range enough to go 173 miles. The EV was being used each day in a commute, so all I did was charge the batteries. On the 8th of March , proudly, I left to go to the metting of the NBEAA at Sonoma University. It was only 8.8 miles and well within my driveing range. I got within 3 miles of the school and lost all power. Used the cell to call the grandson to come to my location. I went on to the meeting and told Chuck Hursch (Treasurer and Webmaster) that I was broke down and going to tow it home. Chuck showed up just before we were leaving and found a very dirty terminal. He said he would follow us home. At the house he found a melted terminal and a few more dirty terminals. Not knowing a thing about EV's Chucks help was invaluable. He gave me a place to start and needless to say ALL of the terminals are sparkling clean. EV's fixed and am using it around town. It has more zip than I expected and will have to watch out for the local men in blue.
The EV has been one almost all of it's life. I was given all of the paper work dateing back to 1986. If I read things right it was converted by Electric Automobile in the South Bay.
Some stat's that I know:
- 1980 Plymouth Horizon (hatch back)
- 96 Volts w/ 12 volt utility
- Top speed reported to be 70, but I only go 50 at most.
- The range is reported to be 25 miles (this I will work on to increase 40, with luck)
- And this one is the best stat. According to the EV man at PGE it only costs me $.80 to charge it. This beats $2.30 a gallon for gas.
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Last update: March 22, 2005