A real, live, homemade electric car.

Barry Mizuno’s customized license plate

Barry Mizuno ordered this electric car from a person who does electric car conversions on the mainland. He removed the motor from this BMW and installed the batteries and electric motor.

Barry tells me that he just parks his car in his garage, and plugs it in from where the gas cap used to be.

Mike Kaleikini, Manager of Puna Geothermal, asks, “What happened to the motor?”

More batteries in the trunk!

What strikes me is realizing that my friends who took auto mechanics in the 1960s could do these conversions. When the large auto makers went to electronics and computer run cars, they left a lot of the regular folks behind. This will allow folks to wrench their own cars again. I have the feeling some will start to convert cars in Hilo soon.

I’m jealous. I think I’ll have my sampan bus converted to electricity.

Here are Peter Merriman and his guys standing next to our sampan bus

Last summer, when oil prices were at $147, my nephew told me: “Uncle, I’m thinking of selling my truck and getting a scooter to go to work.” Right then, I knew that the world had changed.

Guys like him now have the option of converting a car to electric, rather than buying a scooter.

I’ll bet that an electric Volkswagen would give him just as grand a self-image as a big-tired 4 x 4 with a pitbull in the back.