Why?

Sometimes I ask myself, “Why did we get ourselves into this mess?”

Let me tell you.

I hate paying for gas. Once I got my license and started having to pay to fill up the tank, I suddenly developed a rather keen interest in fuel-efficient vehicles. I was impressed by the fuel economy of today’s vehicles, but I was especially intrigued by decades-old cars that, despite not having any fancy hybrid-electric magic, managed to achieve very respectable gas mileage. For example, the Honda Civic CR-X HF, the Geo Metro, and the Volkswagen Rabbit. In my research on fuel-efficient vehicles, I stumbled upon a website that sounded quite appealing: 300MPG.org.

Despite the name, I haven’t yet found a 300 mpg vehicle on 300MPG.org. What I did find, though, was arguably cooler: a tutorial for building your own electric car. The series, made by Benjamin Nelson, walks you through converting an old Geo Metro (sound familiar?) into a full-fledged battery electric vehicle. Despite knowing next to nothing about cars, and even less about EV conversions, I knew I wanted to do my own conversion.

I felt almost like an idiot when I first floated the idea to Zack and Finn. I knew the idea sounded outlandish and I knew we’d find ourselves way in over our heads (I was right). But I brought it up anyway, and to my surprise, both Zack and Finn loved the idea. We had our first business meeting a week or two later, and the rest is history…