Build Your Own Electric Vehicle, Third Edition

One of the venerable electric car converion books, it was originally written by Bob Brant in the old days before lithium-ion batteries were common. A few years ago it was updated, with a new co-author (Seth Leitman) who has kept it updated since. An especially valuable feature is all the details about torque curves and the engineering whats-its required to know how big of a motor is required to achieve a certain effect.

Convert It!

Another of the venerable electric car converion books, it is perhaps best seen as a historical archive of what we had to do in the 1980s to 2000s to build an electric car conversion. The author was an auto mechanic who developed methodologies for electric car conversions, and sold electric car conversion kits for the Volkswagen Rabbit and several other vehicles. His advice is highly conservative in that he was reluctant to try anything new when he had already tried and proved a particular component for a particular purpose. The component choices were probably suitable for 1995, but today have been supplanted by new technologies. At the same time the recommendations are sound, in that each had been proved through experience to be reliable.

Build Your Own Electric Motorcycle

A venerable book on electric motorcycle conversion, this guide shows you the ropes by taking you through the construction of a bike Carl Vogel (the author) built for a client. This book was written when lead-acid batteries were still the primary choice, and today we would instead be using lithium-ion batteries. Otherwise the advice in this book is sound.