The Electric Creamsicle

I don't get to post much to the blog, but I wanted to show everyone the new addition to our family. I named her (all VW's are female) The Electric Creamsicle. Electric because, well, as most of you probably know (because it's all I talk about), I'm converting a 1979 VW bus into a fully electric vehicle. Creamsicle because a friend of mine from work, upon seeing a picture of the bus on ebay for the first time said, "it looks like an orange creamsicle." We've had the bus for about two weeks now. I drove her back from Baltimore (approximately a 100 mile trip) on only three cylinders and she did great. I had my doubts, and said a prayer at the beginning of every hill (there are lots of hills between Baltimore and Philly, you know), but we made it. Elias and Marmie the singing peanut accompanied me. Marmie loved my singing and Elias hated it, but we still had fun.
I worked to clean out my garage and find new places for all the stuff I had in there, and now I've got a full-fledged workshop, complete with a compressor, three outlets and some lights. For those of you wondering why I'm not using all three bays of my garage, well, I'm renting out two of them to my tenant who lives in the apartment above the garage. He's an artist and needed a place to work. You can see some of his stuff at troysayers.com.
The more I read and get into this electric vehicle (EV for short) world, the more I realize I have a LOT to learn. I had to end up ordering a kit because there was no way I would be able to piece together all the different parts that would be needed to convert my bus. I know VWs. I don't know electricity. I ordered the kit last week and a large box came in the mail a few days ago, but I really don't know what all the stuff is inside. Just looks like a bunch of wires and boxes with electric stuff inside. I gotta email the company and ask them to explain what everything is.
I was hoping to have the bus up and runing before the end of the summer, but it seems that many other people are thinking to save a few bucks the pump by converting to electric, too. My motor is on back order for the next 8 weeks or so. Did you know that an average vehicle costs around 20 cents per mile to operate, a hybrid costs around 12 cents per mile, and an electric vehicle only costs about 2 cents per mile? Also, depending on the price of electricty, I will spend on electricity anywhere from one quarter to one half what I would pay at the pump? Basically I will plug in the bus to charge every night and have about 40 miles worth of charge to drive the next day before I have to charge it again at night. 40 miles is pretty far, if you think about it. Most of you don't drive 40 miles in a day, and we usually don't either. Obviously this vehicle will be used only in and around the city here. Unfortunately no long trips in The Electric Creamsicle.
Well, here are two videos I took today of the bus. Enjoy.

The cigar is grape flavored. Really. I think I'll smoke it when I get the bus running on electricity. Or maybe I'll just throw it away... I like grape soda... mmmm, grape soda. But I don' know about a grape flavored cigar.