Electric Car Conversion Guide Review: Premium Electric Car

In my quest to learn as much as I can about electric car conversion, I’ve started looking at the available DIY electric car conversion guides out there, starting with the ‘Premium Electric Car’ guide by Samuel Watson (available online in electronic form).

This e-book contains a lot of useful info for the beginner electric car builder or the person who wants to start a car build from the ground up. The e-book contains a solid overview of how an electric car actually works (like, for instance, what a controller really is) and good ways to source the batteries, components, and so forth that you will need to complete your project.

The book is too short to be completely step-by-step in-depth from the ground up, but most DIY’ers won’t need that level of detail anyway. It gives you the hard information you need without becoming a canned recipe for car building.

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 electric vehicle building.

All of that being said, it’s not written in the best English. I suspect that the author is not a native English speaker or is from some English-slaughtering place like Northampton. However, the e-book is readable gets its information across.

Overall, after I got past trying to edit the book for grammar and readability, I found the ‘Premium Electric Car’ guide to be a very 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, I 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.