The Homemade Electric Porsche (VIDEO)

Homemade Electric Porsche (VIDEO)

Jeff McCabe didn't have $125,000 for the Tesla Roadster, so he decided to make an electric car on his own, for a quarter of the price.

McCabe recently met with Katie Fehrenbacher at GigaOm for the network's weekly Green Overdrive Series to explain how he gutted his old-school Porsche by removing 1,700 pounds of unnecessary gear that stood between him and his dream of lightweight electric freewheeling.

In its place, he installed a lithium ion phosphate battery capable of taking McCabe 120 miles without a charge and to a top speed of 85 mph. McCabe claims he could have left in gears that would have allowed the car to reach higher speeds. But this isn't about speed, he says. It's about performance. (And a little bit of aesthetics, as you can see from McCabe's hair-raising paint job.)

Watch the video to see how McCabe converted his Porsche into an electric car, and check out GigaOm's Green Overdrive Series here:

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