Art, technology meld in electric vehicles

A whirlwind of creative activity has been emerging around downtown Las Vegas as CEO Tony Hsieh and Zappos.com plan their move to the area later this year. Hsieh’s venture capital group, Vegas TechFund, has been investing in the Downtown Project to realize a “return on community” for his 1,300 employees when they arrive in the area to work, play and live.

From managing the First Fridays monthly street fair to the new Container Park that uses shipping containers as buildings on Seventh Street, there are a lot of innovative efforts in the works.

A preview of this burgeoning art-tech culture was showcased during February at the first Mini-Maker Faire at the Historic Fifth Street School, which included an exhibit of homebrew electric cars.

The Maker movement started as an informal gathering of artists and technologists that went mainstream in 2005 with the publication of Make magazine . Maker Faires have sprung up around the country .

At the Fifth Street School, about 30 exhibits flanked a stage with continuing speaker presentations. Makers of all ages unveiled original projects that blended art and science. R2-D2 and a mobile DEC computer wandered the exhibit floor. A sumo competition featured dueling tabletop robots at the Pololu Electronics booth. A 1975 Altair computer played Daisy as part of a historical personal computer display, alongside tiny printed circuits and light-emitting diodes made by SMT Boards. The SYN Shop exhibited a home-built 3-D printer.

Jon Halquist, vice president of the Las Vegas Electric Vehicle Association, exhibited a converted 1985 Pontiac Fiero that included banks of lead-acid batteries to provide power to a direct-current motor.

Ryan, Bob and Gail Brandys took a time trip back to the future by converting a 1982 DeLorean DMC-12 to run on an electric motor powered by lithium-ion batteries. The family has been building a battery management system they designed that charges and monitors multiple pairs of lithium-ion cells by using parallel electronic arrays.

People who convert gasoline-powered cars to electric cars have followed the hot rod building tradition. Backyard mechanics have pulled out all the gasoline engine components in their vehicles and substituted an electric motor, control electronics and lots of batteries. Cost-effective conversions have been achieved with less than $8,000 in parts.

An electric-vehicle-building community has thrived in Las Vegas since Lectra Motors was formed in 1979 by former employees of the Nevada Test Site. Lectra Motors successfully manufactured more than 1,000 electric cars and trucks at its plant on Valley View Drive until 1982.

A local chapter of the Electric Auto Association was organized by researchers at the Desert Research Institute in 1995. That same year, progressive state laws defined electric cars as alternative-fuel vehicles and enabled electric vehicle licensing procedures within the Department of Motor Vehicles. During the 2011 state legislative session, Gov. Brian Sandoval signed Assembly Bill 511 into law to expand the use of alternative-fuel vehicles within the state and allow autonomous vehicles to travel on Nevada roads and highways for the first time.

The Las Vegas Electric Vehicle Association holds general meetings the second Saturday of each month and conducts hands-on electric-vehicle conversion workshops about twice a month. For more information, visit www.lveva.org.

Association member Evan Eskelson recently taught a four-week series of classes about electric-car-conversion techniques at the College of Southern Nevada, Summerlin campus. Eskelson and Lou Gagliano have converted a 1988 Mitsubishi pickup truck and a 1984 BMW 318-i to electric-drive vehicles. Gagliano has used the electric truck to deliver copies of the Las Vegas Review-Journal to local customers.

Larry Gareffa, president of the Mustang and Classic Ford Club of Las Vegas, obtained sponsorship from Odyssey Battery and other component vendors to convert a classic 1965 Mustang Fastback into an electric show car. Affectionately named Sparky, the Mustang has been exhibited at Specialty Equipment Market Association and other local car shows.

Gary Reid, a senior engineer for the city of Las Vegas, built an electric three-wheel motorcycle that looks like a cross between Ed “Big Daddy” Roth’s Rat Fink hot rods and the Jetsons’ space buggy from the Hanna-Barbera cartoons. A Plexiglas bubble encloses the cockpit. A collapsible wind generator can be raised from the back of the vehicle while it is parked to partially recharge the vehicle’s battery pack when the wind is blowing.

Keep dreaming. Keep building. Think different!

Stan Hanel has worked in the electronics industry for more than 30 years and is a long-time member of the Electric Auto Association and the Las Vegas Electric Vehicle Association. Hanel writes and edits for EAA’s “Current Events” and LVEVA’s “Watts Happening” newsletters. Contact him at stanhanel@aol.com.