My name is Chris Simon (the one in the upper left above:-) and I live in Minneapolis. This is my first conversion of an "EV".

I have some experience working on cars (including the complete rebuild of a VW Bug engine while in college) but don't consider myself to have the skills or tools to do much heavy duty work on a modern car. Despite this I chose to take the plunge on this project, learning as I go along.

My education and career have been spent in the field of Electrical Engineering, which definitely will be a benefit as I move into ciruit and wiring phase of the project. However, my work experience has centered on the design of integrated circuts, printed wiring boards, and high speed computers. Not too useful for the high currents and voltages involved in an EV.

I can safely say that I've forgotten more about electric motors and batteries than I've retained since my days taking EE classes at Michigan State University.

I am married and have two daughters who are 9 and 12 years old. I hope to involve them a bit in the project but given their other activities and my own busy job, I'm probably not going to make progress on this project as fast as I'd like to.

The challenge of constructing a safe and efficient battery powered vehicle intrigues me. My goal is to create a vehicle with the comforts and safety of a recent model car but eliminate the pollution and dependence on foreign oil. Some day we may all have several choices among commercially available electric vehicles, but in the meantime I decided to take this on for myself.

As a citizen of the planet who had the good fortune to be born in the US, and as someone who has travelled overseas, I recognize that our society is very wasteful of resources. I don't believe that the world can sustain a growing population that continues to use energy and other resources on the scale of the US consumer. So I'm trying to figure out what I can do to reduce my own use. I hope that you will leave this website with a bit more inspiration for what you yourself can do.

Part of what inspired me to start on this project is a local family who sold their cars and are using bicycles and public transportation exclusively. I wasn't quite ready to go to that extreme, biking with my daughters across town in the dark on a frigid January night, so this is my compromise.

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