And the answer is!: it takes a lot less energy to run a house than it does
to push a Vanagon down the road.

However, it is possible to run a Vanagon on the sun. You need a big solar
array on your roof, a big battery storage system to store the energy during
the day so you can charge at night and an battery converted vanagon.

The Vanagon would cost about $10,000 plus the cost of the donor vehicle.
Some of these costs could be recaptured by selling the ICE and other
components you will not need.

The Solar array will cost a lot, say $25,000 or more (more like $40,000).

The Battery Storage will cost probably $5000.

A cheaper way to to build the Vanagon Electric and charge it overnight. It
seems youcan get 35-50 mile range and a chage time of 8-10 hours.

Truth is, if you need a commute car, you might want to use a lighter vehicle
to start with.

I just to an all day class on this last weekend, so I have a pretty good
idea of how it all work now.

Kim
----- Original Message -----
From: "Slloth" <slloth@COMCAST.NET>
To: <vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM>
Sent: Friday, September 12, 2008 4:30 PM
Subject: Re: Fuel Prices

> Rico Dagastino wrote:
> > Fuel prices are up about 50 cents this afternoon.  Our petroleum
> > infrastructure in the gulf is vulnerable to storms and terrorism.
> > Doesn't  it seem a
> > little silly to do more offshore drilling in areas that are
> > vulnerable  to such
> > threats.  Maybe if we could get the oil companies to get their  hands
> > off of
> > our government we could develop alternative strategies for energy
> > independence.
> > Remember what GM and the tire companies did to the streetcar
> > companies.  The
> > game is still the same.
> >
> > Rico Dagastino
> > Memphis,TN
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > **************Psssst...Have you heard the news? There's a new fashion
> > blog,
> > plus the latest fall trends and hair styles at StyleList.com.
> > (http://www.stylelist.com/trends?ncid=aolsty00050000000014)
> >
> >
> With out getting too "political".  I am surprised that technology has
> been so slow to come up with a cost effective alternative to oil.  I did
> see the video with the electric vanagon.
> How possible is it to create a vanagon ( or any vehicle) that runs
> almost exclusively on solar power?  Is the problem the the price of
> solar power?
> If I'm not mistaken many houses are totally run on solar power.
>
> --
> '84 Westfalia, 1.9L
> '73 FJ40, 2F
>