Why do so many people want to be hatin' on home electric vehicle conversions? When we featured Andrew Angellotti and his DIY Mazda pick-up truck conversion, a lot of people felt the need to criticize what this boy had done. Granted, there were some who defended him as well, but the very fact that people took the time to denegrate what he'd done was strange to me. Guess I shouldn't be surprised that something similar happened to Travis Gintz, the guy behind the eVFR (above).

It's taken quite a while to get to this stage, but Gintz wrote in to let us know that his electron-powered Honda VFR is finished. The other day, he took it to EV Awareness Day in Portland, Oregon. As Travis writes on his blog:

The first question out of everyone's mouth was "How far does it go"... to which I replied "15-20 miles on crappy used UPS batteries I got for free". I initially wanted to go with larger lead [acid batteries], but since these were free, I wanted to develop/test the mechanical first, and then upgrade to lithium in the fall. Its all working and now I can shop for alternatives to lead. Most people scoffed a little, I didn't care, Its quite a feat in a motorcycle, especially keeping it stock looking. I know what the end result will be.... LiFePo and AC will eventually find their way into that bike. It will perform well, and range will be 30-40 miles.

Compare this positivity to the negative comments some people feel the need to leave. Gintz said that the bike is now completely assembled, except for the turn signals and will be registered to be street-legal soon. We talked a bit with Travis about his project and you can read our interview after the jump.

UPDATE: picture updated at Travis' request.

We love the British show Scrapheap Challenge. Reruns of the old Junkyard Wars episodes sometimes appear on satellite TV, and we've seen all of them. The show still runs in the U.K., and the latest episode featured junkyard-derived motorcycles, which the show charitably describes as superbikes. One rule in particular made the challenge rather difficult: no parts originally used on a motorcycle may be used on the scrap-bikes. This made the design of the two-wheelers rather interesting, to say the least. One team decided to go light and nimble with an electric motor and lead-acid batteries. The other team chose to use the engine from a small car. What could be greener than making usable electric machines recycled from discarded junk? Would the powerful internal-combustion engine powered "superbike" grab the victory from the plucky little electric machine? If you'd like to find out, follow the build progress and recaps of the three races which would decide the winner. Thanks for the tip, Willo!

[Source: Channel 4]

The Region of Cantabria, Spain, has announced a plan for companies to switch from gasoline motorbikes to electric units. The plan, called BioBike, is aimed to business which use motorbikes for pizza, courier and postal deliveries as well as police patrols. The Government will give tax exemptions as well as direct subsidies for purchase of electric motorbikes. No word on conversions.

According to Cantabria, a company can substitute a 50cc moped for a 1.5 kW electric unit, a 80cc bike for 2.5 kW electric, and large 400cc units by 20kW motors. Range usually varies between 60 and 150 km, which is plenty since these vehicles perform errands in a range of less than 100 km per day in urban settings, and can be recharged in four to six hours. I'll give them a hint: help these guys.

[Source: Econoticias]