Riding In DIY Electric Vehicles In Ukraine (Videos) — EV Flashback
I’ve spent the past week or so thoroughly looking through our archives. In the process, I’ve run across some pretty funny and interesting old articles. This one below is from nearly 6 years ago! Tesla delivered a grand total of 5,500 cars in the quarter this was published (Q3 2012). I went on a cleantech tour of Ukraine at that time (Kiev and Crimea, just before Russia invaded Crimea), and there were many highlights, but it’s hard to compete with the handmade electric car below. Check it out.
Photos by Zach Shahan | CleanTechnica (CC BY-SA license)
Aside from the Bio Auto electric car I wrote about the other day, I also got to check out a couple of interesting DIY electric vehicles while I was in Kiev, Ukraine*. Video and pictures of these EVs are below.
This first EV is certainly something special. As you’ll hear in the interview, the 75-year-old man in the following videos built the Electra 2 by hand. He’s an inventor who had quite a successful career in the aviation industry despite no formal training, and he builds EVs in order to get more people aware of and inspired by the awesomeness that they contain. This is his second handmade EV (the first one is called Electra 1, surprisingly). Pretty awesome car. Here’s a video from riding in it:
Here’s another video with a few more details about the car:
Here’s one in which we find out a little bit about the creator of the car:
The creator of the car thinks it would be better with a solar panel on top (if someone wants to donate a panel):
The sound is a bit low here, but this video is one final thanks to the folks who made this ride possible:
This second EV was actually converted from a gasmobile earlier this year. EV conversions are nothing new, but very cool nonetheless. This is actually my first time riding in one, and I have to say that it felt awesome — the same as other EVs. Here’s an interview about the car with the man who converted it, including a bit more info about the group that came out for me on that day to show off their EVs:
And here’s a video from my ride in the car:
Here are several additional pics of these cars (all images courtesy of Alternativa):
As with the Bio Auto electric car I previously wrote about, the ride in all of these was super fun, smooth, and quiet. The instant torque is fun, as always.
*Full disclosure: My trip to and around Ukraine was supported by Activ Solar, greencubator, and Alternativa. Alternativa organized this portion of the trip.
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