detailed guidance
The book covers all essentials. In some parts it is opinionated which does not reduce its value.

Puzzling pastiche
This book could have been so much more.

There is a lot of information in this book. It's just terribly organized. These two guys needed an editor or co-author who could/would help them reorganize the stuff thrown together there. They also should have the "!" key surgically removed from their keyboard.

I wonder if they updated their sources in the back of the book from the first edition. In these days when corner hardware stores have websites, an amazing number of their resources listed have neither website addresses nor can be found on Google. Are they really still in business?

The authors weren't sure if they were defending an environmental case for electric cars, writing a history of electric cars, highlighting progress in electric cars, creating a how-to manual or teaching electrical engineering. Pieces of all of those are here. Yet they still left a lot of unanswered questions for me.

If you're going to convert a vehicle, this book may have some resources for you; it's a small investment relative to the size of your project. Still, the book should have been a lot better.

Barry Gardner

build your own electric vehicle
This book is very helpful with information you can use to build your own electric car.

Save your time and money
I'm a pretty easy reviewer, few books I don't like.

This one was a waste of time and money. Let me be specific. Where the author could have been less detailed he wasn't where he could have been more detailed he wasn't.

I'm doing an EV conversion and I live on a mountain. I don't want to read you'll need a "little" more horse power if you live in a hilly area. I want to hear 10%, 20% whatever more.

Engines. He says we will start out with AC motors and then launches into electrical engineering speak. His conversions he writes about are DC motored vehicles. Then I go to another electrical engineers website, a guy who has done several conversions and he says DC motors arc and to only use AC. Also, several of the websites that show completed vehicles that used DC motors shown in his conversions (this book) show top speeds of 50 mph.

Some people shouldn't write - or teach.

Good up to date book on EVs
This is the first up to date book I've found on EVs in years. This revised edition reflects the current economy, state of oil prices and government regulations regarding EVs. Everything you'd need to get started on an EV project or to just educate yourself on the subject.