16 year old Andrew Angellotti turned his gas-powered pickup into an electric-powered pickup. (Photo by Dustin Dwyer)
People have been talking about electric cars ever since cars first hit the road. But nobody’s mass
producing an electric car right now. General Motors says it’s working on a gas saving electric
vehicle that could be ready in 2010. But some people aren’t waiting around. Dustin Dwyer
recently met someone who converted his pickup to run on batteries:
Transcript
People have been talking about electric cars ever since cars first hit the road. But nobody’s mass
producing an electric car right now. General Motors says it’s working on a gas saving electric
vehicle that could be ready in 2010. But some people aren’t waiting around. Dustin Dwyer
recently met someone who converted his pickup to run on batteries:
You don’t have to be a mechanical expert to build an electric car. I recently caught up with a 16
year old who did it on his own.
“Can you just sort of introduce yourself on my recorder here, say your name and what you did ….
I’m Andrew Angellotti, I converted a Mazda pickup truck to electric power to run off of batteries.”
Angellotti’s pickup has 20 batteries in all – four of them are tucked under the hood of the red
Mazda B2200. There’s another 16 batteries in the bed of the truck.
Angellotti says these are basically golf cart batteries. He charges them through a cord that runs
from his garage and plugs into the front grille of the truck.
“Is it drivable now? Yeah absolutely. Can we take a ride? Yeah, sure.”
We jump into the truck, and here things are a bit weird. Pretty much all the knobs and vents have
been ripped out. Angellotti says this is because the heating system was all hooked up to the gas
engine, so he had to get rid of it. That means he has no heat.
But basically, this truck works just like your vehicle. Angellotti puts the key in the ignition and he
turns it.
“So that’s the vacuum pump running for the power breaks … that’s my radio … and that provides
vacuum for the brakes. It’ll cycle on and off. And, that’s what it sounds like.”
Once he gets it up to speed, the electric pickup drives, and rattles the same as any other old
pickup on the road. Angellotti says he decided to start this project one night when he was looking
around at stuff on the Internet.
“I saw this site about electric vehicle conversions, and as I was looking at it I saw how practical it
actually is. And how it’s not that complicated and how it’s not that expensive when you put it in
perspective, and I decided I wanted my first car to be an electric car.”
The conversion process took nine months. And it cost about six thousand dollars. Angellotti paid
for it himself with money he made as a lifeguard.
He says the work on the truck wasn’t always easy.
“There were quite a few points during the project, during you know, kind of a hard part, I’d start
thinking, you know, for six thousand dollars I could have a really cool car. But, you know, I woke
up the next morning and I’m like, ‘But nobody else is going to have an electric car. So I decided to
keep going with it.”
And this past summer, several months after Angellotti’s 16th birthday, the truck was finished. He
splashed neon green lettering on the side to let everyone know it’s an electric vehicle. And he says
now the truck draws a crowd wherever it goes.
Angellotti says, that’s kinda the point – to raise awareness, and let people know that there is a
more sustainable way to drive.
He drives me a couple of miles near his house, which is about an hour north of Detroit, and when
we get back to, Angellotti plugs the truck back in. He says he can get 40 miles between each
charge.
That’s 40 miles with no gas. And he’s doing it right now. Automakers say they won’t have any kind
of electric vehicle until 2010 at the earliest.
So I asked Angellotti, if a teenager can build an electric car in his mom’s garage, why can’t the big
automakers like GM do it?
“GM can build an electric car. In fact, are you familiar with the EV1? Yeah. Yeah, well they can do
it. And that’s a large part of the message I’m trying to send is, if a kid can build an electric car,
why isn’t GM doing it? They can do it. They’re just not.”
Of course, it’s not really that simple. Angellotti’s truck is not the kind of solution that would work
for everyone.
He’s making some big sacrifices to drive his electric truck. He spent more money on the truck to
begin with. And remember he’s got no heater. It takes 10 hours to get the truck fully juiced. Its
top speed is 55 miles per hour. Angellotti can never take it more than 40 miles from home
without recharging. And in three to five years, he’ll have to shell out more money to replace his
batteries.
So, really, how many of us would be willing to make those sacrifices?
As for Angellotti, he says the sacrifices he’s making are worth it. And he’s already started working
to convert his second electric car.
For the Environment Report, I’m Dustin Dwyer.