Zoomi Life

In our quest to find out everything we can about electric vehicles, their market, and what people are doing with EVs, we at ZoomiLife thought that maybe we have been neglecting the do-it-yourselfers out there. These are the people driving the electric revolution from the streets, the guerrilla warriors of the EV industry, the people who’re tired of waiting for their local car sales lot to have what they’re looking for.

Other EV Conversion Guide Reviews

• Electric Car Conversion Guide Review: Gas2Electric (Part I)
• Electric Car Conversion Guide Review: Gas2Electric (Part II)

These mavericks, these rebels with a cause, these… OK, you get the idea.

So we’ve started looking at DIY EV books, starting with Building Your Electric Car Successfully by Samuel Watson (available online in electronic form and also known as the ‘Premium Electric Car’ guide).

This book is informative and has a lot of great information for the casual builder or the person who wants to start a car build from scratch. There’s a good overview of how an electric car actually works (like, for instance, what a controller really is) and good ways to source batteries, components, and so forth.

The book is too short to be completely step-by-step in-depth with a build from the ground up, but most DIY people don’t need that anyway. It gives the hard information needed without becoming a Martha Stewart recipe for car building.

All of that being said, it’s not written in the best and most flowing English. I suspect that Samuel Watson is not a native English speaker or is from some English-slaughtering place like Northampton. It’s readable and the information gets across, just don’t expect to be fascinatingly engrossed or anything. Walt Whitman he ain’t.

Some great extra information is included, though, that probably makes this book worth the money spent. Building a frame from scratch, for instance, or a custom motor mount for your new drive train.

The use of deep cycle batteries (instead of less long-lived lead acid or much more expensive li-ion) is covered, which rarely gets mentioned in EV building. These are the storage medium of choice for many home wind and solar enthusiasts, so it’s nice to see it being presented as a choice with EVs too.

The use of a truck bed “tool box” as a battery storage trunk is also innovative and something I wouldn’t have thought of.

Overall, after I got past trying to edit the book for grammar and readability, I found Building Your Electric Car Successfully to be a greatly informative read. It’s got enough information, pictures, and diagrams to make it useful, but not so many that you feel confined to a single concept car. Overall, If you’re a beginner and serious about building your own electric car, we feel the $37 purchase price of the e-book is worth it. If you already know all the basics, then this guide is probably not for you. You can buy the guide here.

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