No Garage Space to Work In

Now that I'm back up to speed with several things on the Civic-EV, it's become painfully obvious that I probably can't make much progress without having a real Civic in my garage to work and take measurements on.

This is a bit of a dilemma because I only have a one-car garage and my current electric vehicle (the Porsche 914) is sitting in it, charging up. I'm considering several options:

• Sell the 914 EV so I have garage space and more money for parts
• Lend the 914 EV to a trusted friend so that they can commute with it and save gas while I work on the Civic
• Park the 914 EV outside and take the risk that it will get stolen by thieves, or dirtied from the outside weather. (I don't live in the best neighborhood) I can plug in at night with a cord dangling outside, but that could invite mischievous behavior.
• Try to borrow garage space from a friend. This might work for a month or two, but it would significantly slow down my work.
  

I'm pretty gung-ho on the Civic project at this point and not having a physical donor car (glider) is a significant hindrance. In the long run, I'll probably (gasp!) keep the Civic EV and sell the 914 EV just because the Civic is more practical, has more power and is less of a target. The 914 is definitely a classic, but it comes with all the quirks and decay of an older car.

Since I'm still jet-lagged, I'll ponder this for a few days. There are many Civics on Craigslist.com for $2000 or less that would meet my needs, so getting a car should be fairly easy.

I also spent today writing some preliminary documentation for the initial conversion steps on the Civic EV. You can check them out in the Google Groups Files section here.

If you have any suggestions for what to do about the lack of garage space, I'm all ears.

Cheers,
Tim