A New Zealand woman builds her own electric car for $ 24,000

A New Zealand woman transforms a 29-year-old dilapidated vehicle into a home-made electric vehicle “to show that this can be done”.

Rosemary Benverton has been driving her modified vehicle on South Island roads for three years. The project took her and a friend more than eight months of intensive work and adjustments. “It simply came to our notice then. “I want to thank the oil companies for the impetus.”

Benverton bought the car body from a garbage dump in 1993 and disassembled the combustion engine himself. He replaced it with a new gearbox and electric motor, then loaded the vehicle’s front and rear batteries, 24 under the hood and 56 in the trunk.

In total, the project, including labor, cost Benverton $ 24,000. The vehicle is fully approved and guaranteed. After many years in circulation, his project recently caught the attention of local journalists.

Hagen Brookman, the refrigeration engineer who helped convert Benverton’s car, has already converted eight cars to electric motors. “You can talk about everything you want about this environmental waste, but you have to put it into practice,” he says.

Without free labor, replacing a car is not an economically viable option for most people, but there is a strong commercial case for replacing trucks and larger vehicles, in which the body is generally more valuable than the engine. He explains that the replacement of a diesel truck will pay for itself in five years. “Actually, polluters have to pay, and I don’t understand why they don’t,” he says.

Benverton, who has been fighting for the environment for a long time, explains that the time and money spent on replacing his car is not possible for everyone. “I am in a very privileged position,” but he wanted to explain this possibility in light of the world’s climate crisis. He charges his house with a car that runs entirely on solar energy.

Although Benverton believes the car will pay for itself – he spends up to $ 100 a week on gas – he says this is not a cost-saving measure and calls on the government to support the product. “The simple fact that it is possible to do that is a precious one,” he says. “The most important thing is to help stop the biggest polluters quickly, and I think we as individuals can do nothing.”

This article was changed on May 27, 2022 to change the title according to The Guardian’s style guidelines..