4 UNB students tout converting cars to electric their way

Four engineering students hope to help New Brunswickers steer clear of the gas pump in the future.

Michael Barnhill, Nicolas Dowling, Isaac Barkhouse and Sam Poirier believe they've developed a more efficient way to convert gasoline engines to electric.

"Car conversions have been around since the '80s," Dowling said. "This is not new technology.

"For our project, we started converting one. When we realized how inefficient it was, we realized we could do it better."

Simplified installation 

In his garage, Barkhouse has a compact car, a silver Subaru Impreza. Under the hood, the space seems barren because the engine has been ripped out.

Black boxes sit on a table, with wires protruding and plugged into the Impreza. 

Barkhouse said that in other electric conversion kits, after everything relating to gasoline is removed, each part of the new electric motor would have to be installed separately. 

"So normally, the way a conversion is done is that you would build your battery pack," he said. "You'd build the mounting equipment for that. You'd then find a space in the car where you can mount that.

"You do the same for the motor controller. You'd do the same for actually mounting the motor onto the transmission. There are many components."  

The method developed by the University of New Brunswick students is to install a single unit with all the needed parts found within.

"That we can drop in and just mount this one box as opposed to having to mount individual components," Barkhouse said. "Motor, motor controller — all the components you need to run an electric car are built in."

Keeping all the electric parts of the new motor closer together, restricted to a small box, could increase the chance for overheating, but Barkhouse said he and his partners have accounted for that in their planning.

It's also a modular design, meaning parts can be easily taken away, added or swapped out. 

They say the products of other companies with electric motors can't be customized as easily.

Depending on how much power and speed a car owner is looking for, the time it takes to convert a car varies. 

For light-duty conversions, however, it could take as little as a day to convert somebody's gas-guzzler, the students said.

If the car battery is stored behind the gas tank, as it is in some cars, the conversion will take more time.

The students also believe their product will be cheaper, but they declined to say what they would charge.

They did say conversions now on the market cost between $22,000 and $40,000 and they plan to charge a small fraction of that. 

Care about the environment

The friends call themselves environmentalists, balancing their love of cars with the desire to reduce emissions.

"We all wanted an electric car," Barnhill said. "However, they weren't readily available. So we went about trying to make our own."

The students believe bans on emissions will happen sooner or later, with places like Germany and Vancouver leading the way.

But while they believe their technology could be useful in Europe, the students are more interested in influencing the local market. NB Power has taken steps to make sure people can charge their electric cars, but some of the charging stations installed so far get little use.

"Right now, New Brunswick has the most electric car-charging posts per capita, but the least amount of electric cars," Dowling said.

"We're prepared for this transition, we're looking to moving towards that."

The young engineers have a working prototype of their conversion process, but it hasn't yet been road tested.

That hasn't stopped them from creating a startup company called PotentialMotors and banking on future testing going well. 

In the coming weeks they'll be putting their engine to the test on the road, but it will take a few years before they're servicing local cars. 

They're not looking to compete with Tesla, they said. They just hope to make the green technology more readily available.

"How a lot of electric car conversions work is they're retro cars," Dowling said. "They're Jaguars from the '60s and '50s that people want to convert to electric so they have their old car again.

"At the end of it, they get a car they can drive in the summer and maybe the spring. We want to bring electric cars to everyone — not just old retro cars."