Nick Viera’s Jeep Cherokee Conversion

Posted by PhoenixEV on Oct 6, 2008 in Conversions | 0 comments

Nick Viera did an excellent job of documenting his conversion of a 1988 Jeep Cherokee to an all electric vehicle. Nick started the project when he was 17 years old in 2003, the project was finally completed in 2004 for a total of about 14 months.

Nick turned a very used Jeep into an environmentally friendly vehicle. While the range is short (around 35 mi. on a charge), it is a great urban vehicle.

Nick created a web site called DriveEV.com that completely documents the steps and progress of the conversion. There are a number of pictures on the progress and details on each step, tear-down of all of the Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) components and support, to installation of readily available electric motor and components.

This conversion, like the Ford Probe from an earlier article, use proven technology that people have been using to convert their vehicles for over 25 years. From the 9.5″ DC motor to the flooded lead-acid Trojan battery pack, these are proven technologies.

While we applaud the efforts of Nick and others, we hope to see some of these vehicles converting to AC motors and Lithium Poly, or Lithium Nanophosphate technology with a much higher energy density as they become available.

So, check out Nick’s web site at by clicking here and see how any vehicle can be converted to an electric vehicle.