Collaborated With: MIT Energy Initiative and MIT Electric Vehicle Team

The team's first project began in late 2006, when MIT Professor Yang Shao-Horn and Dr. Quinn Horn of Exponent donated a 1976 Porsche 914, motor, charger, and controller. The Porsche was converted into a battery electric vehicle (BEV) using 18 U-Charge® XP Lithium Phosphate batteries donated by Valence Technology. From the beginning, EVT students designed this lithium-ion conversion with two underlying objectives: to establish the vehicle's usefulness for research and to maximize the system's safety. The Porsche 914 BEV has similar driving performance to the original vehicle, with the added advantage of regenerative braking. The vehicle is street legal, and EVT team members can often be seen driving around the Boston area on test drives or on the way to local outreach. Video from our latest test drives is available at http://web.mit.edu/evt/video.html.