We Built a $3100 Solar Powered Electric Mini Truck with FREE charging for life

Today we bought a Chinese electric pickup truck and made it charge for free.

Mailbox:
P.O. Box 1041
Salem, MA 01970

[vylbird]

As mockable as the vehicle is, consider that it's also endlessly maintainable. Anything that break can be fixed. There are no custom components - it's all off the shelf. No software locks. It's a perfect vehicle for modding enthusiasts, who can fix the dodgy welds and rebuild the wiring.

And what to do with it? The best you can. Strengthen the tack welds. Change the batteries for lighter, more powerful lithium cells. Design improved power electronics that can deliver better performance. Properly mount the solar panel and integrate it correctly with the new electronics. Pimp that ride and show us what it can really do.

[teitake]

Please make it a series in which you progressively upgrade this vehicle including the frame, suspension, motor, and battery.

[SalemTechsperts]

Turning radius resembles the CERN Hadron Collider

[awareaction]

Add a couple of 800W ebike hub motors to the front. Use them just for regen(easy to convert one with a 3ph bridge rectifier) and some stuck offroad situations🙄. Should help with recovering a big chunk of braking power. Also replace the lead acid cells with a good LFP pack made for offgrid power(should have a builtin battery heater for winter charging). These along with Solar roof, should go a long way to reduce range anxiety!.

[ahabwolf]

Crazy how well it handled the rough terrain. Even with those tiny wheels there was enough torque and traction to overcome the weight of the vehicle.

[Twisted_T_Racing]

I work for a golf cart taxi company as a mechanic and we have three of We've had them for 2 years and years looks to be a slightly different design for the driver information center but for the backup camera and radio it's the same and ours only lasted 4 months and all three of them and they literally would let the smoke out of the circuit board in the back and one even melted the entire front of the screen. The battery chargers for them on average last 1 to 4 months being daily driven but they all fail so now I have search them over to scooter style chargers. The range on average is only about 5 mi. We've had two motor inverters fail. Tons of frame breaks to the point But I have made frames that are frames out of 2x2 box deal and directly well to them to the bottom and the suspension to hold everything together. To deal with the range one of them I put a 72 volt generator on and it runs all the time to make it more into a "series hybrid" But honestly the best one we have is the one that I gutted everything out of and put a gas golf cart axle under. It's reliable it's now strong looks cool and we'll go 34 mile an hour with The larger golf cart wheels I put on it. Also take note that the batteries are dangerously set up in it. The chassis is actually ground for both the 12 volt and the high voltage battery. Trust me you do not want to grab their circuit breaker wire and the frame at the same time if you're sweating. We also had one in the first week of ownership that we had to return and get a whole new replacement truck because one of the wire shaffed through and put 72 volts through all the electronics. Ours are also the 4 door versions just like yours. If we weren't in so deep in debt on them we would literally just scrap them.

[billiam]

The simplest upgrade is probably actually welding everything together.

[aam]

Reinforcing all those welds must make that thing so much better.

[eagleeyez]

hahahahaha i cracked up so bad when rich said 'don't break that' when he was just flipping the wiper lever normally.

[confuseatronica]

this is my holy grail vehicle- a little electric truck with a rack on top for a stack of panels, one of which is plugged in. Infinite range in very very short hops with 1-2 day breaks in between. Charge in the day, drive at night.

Nice rubbery slinky dog too

[termiterasin]

The battery wire running through metal with no grommet gives me a heart attack.

[eIektrinis]

I have a IONIQ 5 P45, which came with solar roof. Two years in, it has generated around 20kWh, so around $1 so far. A neighbor once came and asked what's it for. I calmly explained its purpose is to attract questions. Nothing more.

[qwertyuiop]

suggested modifications:
- add another solar panel, that slides over/under the roof-mounted panel for more solar power, doubling as a roof for the truck bed

- upgrade to Chinese LiFePo4 batteries with build in BMS (assuming the current delivery is sufficient off course)for better range and/or weight reduction, and more stable voltage under load

- add Chinese 72V mmpt solar controller for battery-friendly solar charging (Juntek is cheap and good quality)

- build in a Chinese 72V charger (or multiple ones parallel) for 'supercharging' the LiFePO4's from a powerline. LiFePO4's accept crazy charging currents, especially at 72V, so you could charge using 2 power groups at once :-)

- add a cheap gasoline generator as a range extender/voltage booster, connected to the charger(s). For this, you may want to use a charger with adjustable current (many of the Chinese chargers offer such a feature), allowing to fine tune for the max power output of the generator. If you go for a setup with multiple chargers in parallel, a relay connected to an accessory line on the truck can be used to switch between the 'supercharge' mode and 'range extender' mode, by disconnecting the additional chargers when the truck's key is in the "on" position, to match the power output of the generator

- add an additional cheap, relay-controlled, (smaller) 12V or 24V lead acid power source, that can be used as power booster (to about 78V or 91V when fully charged). Switch on/of with relay (button on dashboard or switch on accelerator pedal).
Dangerous, depending on the configuration the motor controller or other electronics might get fright, and the motor itself will not like the overvoltage for a sustained period (you could add a Chinese adjustable timer controller, setting it to xx seconds of 'overboost' followed by an obligatory cooling down period)

- and off course: add more powerful electric motor!

[Legominder]

Generally we need way more cars like this: Purpose-built cheap cars. This costs 10 % of a big truck. And can carry 4 people plus some stuff on a farm. This saves a lot of money and energy!

[scotttovey]

I worked in an auto parts store in the mid 90's and one of the customers said that he always added more ground to his Chrysler vehicles as they tended to have electrical issues that popped up. He found that by adding more ground cables, he eliminated that issue.

With this in mind, look at the cables going from the batteries to the motor.
A thicker cable, will allow power to flow easier and may give you a bit more output, especially going up those hills.

You can relocate that electrical unit stored all by itself somewhere else and add batteries inside that box. Or put additional batteries in a box inside the bed.

You could easily convert the truck to a gasoline hybrid by placing a small gas powered generator in the bed of the truck. This may be what they had in mind when designing it so that you can run it while it's being charged.

[pharonzin]

The resolution of that truck's backup camera is better than the one in my '24 Highlander 🤦🏿‍♂️

[USNEWS]

The only thing you could really do with this that makes sense is a road trip across America!

[fred]

First of all, I would properly weld all the frame rails on that little thing.
Then remove the lead acid batteries, replace them with a used tesla battery pack (at least one or 2 segments, however many you can decently fit) and then replace the motor with a used cheap tesla motor. Make this little thing a ripper!

[decaprio]

"Heh heh heh heh, have you seen their car?"...and the Asian college kid working 6 to 12 in the factory took that personally.

[Simplyput]

Micah Toll Electrek bought one about 2 years ago for US$2, 000 and modified it by adding the solar panel. It is still working on his Florida farm.