The Green 707 Club has been working since the fall of 2014 to transform a gas-fueled truck into an electric vehicle. On Jan. 29, they were able to say that they finally did it.

With their accomplishments, they hope to make the truck legal to drive on the roads and enter it in a national electric vehicle drag racing competition. The group also hopes to qualify for a world record in the pro street A category for electric vehicles.

Club president Paul Mangelsdorf said that it wasn’t easy to start the process.

“The project was started in 2009 by professor Hemchandra Shertukde. Following a rough 2014 and early 2015, the club was refreshed by myself and Sean Biegler,” Mangelsdorf said. “We were able to recruit several new members and began new work in earnest in Sept. 2015. Much of the actual build was completed in the fall 2015 semester. The truck moved under its own power for the first time on Jan. 29, 2016. Our current team consists of me, Sean, Jared Deleon, August Pelliccio, Brandon Zonghi and Mike Desiderio.”

The project was basically an engine swap. As said by Mangelsdorf, it’s similar to a hot rodder putting a more powerful engine in a class car. The only difference is that instead of fuel lines and a gas tank, they have heavy duty cables and a battery bank. They replaced the engine with an 11-inch high voltage DC motor, and the current from the batteries are controlled by a unit that acts very similar to the engine control unit in a modern internal combustion engine vehicle. They also installed a charger that is plugged in through the gas cap, and a few systems to replace functions normally driven by the motor.

Now that the truck is up and running, the NEDRA (National Electric Drag Racing Association) is on their minds.

“The original goal for the club was to take the truck drag racing in order to take advantage of the instant torque provided by the electric motor,” Mangelsdorf said. “Our truck is being set up to run in the PS/A class, which is the designation of how much the vehicle has been set up for racing and the voltage we are using. Currently, there is no standing record in the PS/A class. We plan to first successfully test the truck, and then qualify for a world record. Following that, we plan to continue improving the performance of the truck and we are looking at some higher profile events such as HOT ROD Magazine Drag Week, which is an event that lasts over five days, including racing at five tracks and driving 1,000 miles, which no electric vehicle has completed.”

With the truck getting ready to perform bigger and better things, Mangelsdorf mentioned that he has learned a lot from this project. The main thing he has learned is about managing work as a team.

“This fall, we split up work into three teams with three different areas of work: EV Systems, Fabrication and Automotive Systems,” Mangelsford said. “By doing so, we were able to all work on separate areas at the same time, which meant that we not only got three things done at once, but also stayed out of each other’s way.”

With their accomplishments, the Green 707 team has a long road ahead of them to get themselves a world record which no one has ever done before.

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