TEG

Or the seller figures it is alright to not live up to claims because customers don't make a fuss when they aren't met.

dpeilow

I think if someone sees or gets stuck behind a Porsche doing 0-60 in 43 seconds and figures out it is electric, you are doing the cause a big disservice. That is so far off-spec, he really is obliged (if nothing else more serious) to put it right.

MPT

It'd be nice to hear from the builder here on the forums.

daniel

It is precisely for merging onto the freeway that I wanted acceleration. However, I'm typically up to 40 before I merge from the on-ramp onto the freeway, and for reasons of efficiency and range, I drive 55 or 60, so it's not as long as it might seem.

Yes, I am disappointed.

I think it's pretty unfriendly to tell me I'm doing a disservice! I paid, in good faith, for a car that would have been worth the price. I asked around, and Paul got uniformly good references. When I visited with him, he appeared to be truly committed to electric transportation and he had at least 20 years experience converting Porsches. If indeed, as I now suspect, he had no experience with LiFePO4 and with late-model-year cars, I was unaware of that.

Before buying this car I searched and searched for a car I could test-drive and pay for and drive away, but there was NOTHING. My only option was to pay, in advance, for a car to be built by someone who appeared to be reliable.

Now you propose that I "make" him supply me with a car that fulfills the contract we had. How do you propose I do that?

You'd have to ask him those questions. The chargers are indeed the ones that were bundled with the Chinese (Hipower) batteries. I don't see how they relate to my problems, however.

I have written to him about my concerns. I've only had the car for two weeks, and I wanted to take time to get used to the car and compile actual numbers before I wrote. I didn't want to say just "it doesn't seem to go far enough or fast enough." I wanted to be able to give him real numbers for wh/mi and zero-to-sixty times.

I'm now waiting to see what he says. Any speculation about what he will or will not do to make it right is premature until he responds, and he may be trying to decide how to respond.

Meanwhile, I have not just sat here "accepting" it. I have been posting my details here and on another forum, both to get ideas, and to inform the EV community.

Do you propose that I just quit driving my car because some Joe Sixpack is going to think electric cars are too slow?

Or do you think I should send it back to him and wait another year while he re-builds it from scratch? I've said it before and I'll say it again: I bought this car to drive it, not to be someone else's science project. I made a mistake that cost me a lot of money. I got a car that's worth half what I paid. I'm sure not going to lose the other half by not driving it.

Lastly, I do not believe that Paul intended to give me the shaft. I believe that circumstances (delays in getting the batteries from China, defective controllers, and the illness of one of his workers) conspired against us, and that Paul simply didn't realize what he was getting into with this project. I'm going to give him some time to respond to my email before I pass judgement.

AnOutsider

I don't think anyone is saying this is your fault, I think they're saying you lying down and just taking it isn't a wise course of action - whether he intended to shaft you or not.

That statement baffles me.

I've watched this thread, and I'm amazed at how many excuses you make for him and the general tone of hopelessness that you portray. If this is his M.O. then he relies on people like you to stay in business.

daniel

I don't know why you think I am "just lying down and taking it" or making excuses for him. I've had the car for two weeks. He's had my detailed report of performance on it for a few days. I am giving him the benefit of the doubt until he's had a reasonable amount of time to respond to my complaints, and I am not burning my bridges by turning hostile before I know whether he and I can work together on it.

I am putting my experience out here on this form and another so that if the issues are not resolved, people will know what happened.

Several people above have told me I am doing a disservice to the cause of EVs, either by simply driving my car, or (I presume) by not filing a lawsuit against the guy before he's had a chance to respond to a detailed account of the car's performance. I think this is unfair to me, because I bought this car believing it would do as promised, and I am doing what seems reasonable about it: First compiling numbers, then writing to Paul, and now waiting patiently for his reply. I am also making inquiries concerning what might be done to make the car perform as promised.

While other people are waiting years for a production EV to come along, driving their stinkers in the meanwhile, I've been driving electric for two years; and when no production car was available, I bought what I could find. And I'm making information available about it so others will know where I got my car and what it does. I resent being told that I'm doing a disservice for being patient and trying to resolve the issues amicably.

Daniel

JRP3

I think people are going a bit overboard as to what Daniel is doing, he is taking a measured approach, posting his concerns and his experiences, taking advice, and waiting to see what the builder will do. It's probably a better tact than immediately flying off the handle and making demands of Paul. If Paul is really committed to EV's and having satisfied customers he will address the problems in some way or another. If not then that's a big problem.
I don't think the fact that this is a late model car using lithiums is any excuse for the performance problems. Any reasonably experienced EV builder can do the calculations and get fairly close to real world performance. It's all about the KWH of the pack and the wh/mi usage of the vehicle. The lower voltage controller would of course give poorer acceleration, it's essentially half the power of the original unit, how could it not? There may be other problems going on with the car because your performance is even lower than I would expect with the lower powered controller.

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Building the AMPhibian http://amp-phibian.blogspot.com/
If you can't wait for or afford a Tesla
http://www.diyelectriccar.com/forums/

AnOutsider

I don't agree with the statement if that's what they meant -- though I took it as the cars he's building are a disservice as people seeing these under-performing machines only helps reinforce the electric golf-cart stereotype.

vfx

Those acceleration numbers are criminal.

Either he shipped you a piece of junk, something has gone wrong in transport, or there is an operating error.

The one thing that sets EVs apart is torque. Without that it's a

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The world loves to be deceived.

efusco

I'm sorry that you judge what I say as "unfriendly", it is certainly not the way I intend it.
But you've been screwed over Daniel, plain and simple. It is a disservice to your fellow man any time you enable a business to take advantage of its customers, b/c it makes it that much easier for them to do the same to the next customer.

How do you "make" them. Very very simple. You send a formal letter either written by yourself or by a lawyer explaining the situation, include a copy of your contract and statement of how you feel the situation can be rectified (ie. he provides additional battery capacity and equipment to achieve specs within 80% of the original contract or he build you a new vehicle that meets those specs or he provides a reasonable refund (of your choice) to accomodate you for providing less than promised. Give a specific but fair time from for which he rectify the situation. Remind him that he delivered the vehicle to you without telling you first that it would not meet the contractual specs and that it was only after accepting delivery that you discovered that it did not meet them. That you've given it a reasonable trial break-in period and it still has not shown any significant improvement to suggest that it will ever be able to achieve the speed or range specs promised.

Send the letter certified return/receipt requested. Specify a response date before you file suit. Then follow through.

This isn't being unfriendly, your satisfaction will, ultimately, be much higher if you have the vehicle you expected, or a reasonable facsimile of such. Sometimes it's difficult to be confrontational with someone you feel was doing their best, but you spent a LOT of money for this car. Perhaps that amount of money isn't a huge hit to your personal budget, I don't know, but if I were to buy from this person at that price it would be a MAJOR hit to my car buying budget, and I'm sure that's the same for many other people who are willing to do their part by buying a conversion. And perhaps they'll have the same folks that gave a recommendation to you give them one...but only to find out that there are a number like you who did not get the vehicle promised.

I see this both from an issue where you individually will have greater satisfaction AND where future customers at large will have a better result as it forces Paul to provide a vehicle like he promised.

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EVan E. Fusco, MD
Nixa, MO
Prius owner Eagerly awaiting my Model S- R 77 Sequence number