$13K and a Junkyard BMW Is All You Need to Beat a Tesla Model S P100D

As an owner of three electric vehicles, Eric is definitely a believer when it comes to battery-powered cars, but as difficult as it may be to believe, he didn't pull this stunt to raise awareness for EVs. No, he wanted to highlight another big problem that modern societies have, which also has negative implications on the environment: the alarming quantities of electronic waste we produce.

The BMW 5 Series you see here is called Phoenix, and considering how it came to be, Eric couldn't have picked a more suited name. As we've said, the car was headed for the scrapper, but so were a lot of the other components that its creator used to bring it back to life.

Eric says the Phoenix is made from 88 percent recycled materials (by weight), and if you hear the story of everything that went into the car, you tend to believe him. He started by gathering the necessary battery cells, and to do that, he went asking at a big laptop company. As it turned out, they had a bunch of 18650 used batteries lying around. He then brought the same question to an EV manufacturer that pointed him toward a pile of "dead" battery packs.

Upon opening them, he found that around 80 percent of the actual battery cells were perfectly functional, but the company didn't bother to check. Thus, Eric collected 18650 batteries worth of 130 kWh which he then installed into the BMW. He added an electric motor and a controller, and the Phoenix was ready.

If people complain about Tesla's interior quality, they won't like what they'll see in the Phoenix. The car isn't made to be pretty, so everything is stripped out to save weight (3,960 lb or approximately 1,800 kg). There are two seats, a steering wheel, some dials and not much else.

The whole conversion took 35 days and had a final cost of $12,900. And the result? An electric car that has more range than any other EV on the market, by a long shot. To prove it, Eric gathered a Tesla P90D, a Chevrolet Bolt and a Nissan LEAF for a range contest.

Giant killer

All EVs drove at the same highway cruising speed (70 mph or 112 km/h), at the same time on the same route, and one by one they all started to fall. The first one was, predictably, the Nissan, which stopped after 81 miles (130 km). The Tesla was next to call it quits after 238.2 miles (383 km), leaving the Bolt to save the honor of the mass-produced EVs.

Except the GM-built car had to admit defeat not that long after, pulling over for the final time with 271.5 miles (436 km) on the trip computer and zero on the range left. But the Phoenix was still going. In the end, it was its DIY nature that was the doing of it as it blew a fuse with 32 percent of its battery power still remaining. But that still happened 340.3 miles (547 km) away from they had initially set off.

Timing is everything

How have I not heard about this, you might ask. Well, the video was released on April 1st, which made everyone believe it was a prank. This time, Eric is coming back with a similar video, this time competing only against a Model S P100D. This time, the Phoenix managed a very respectable 382 miles (615 km).

Sadly, Eric isn't interested in building electric cars - or at least not so he could sell them. He's much more interested in spreading the word on the potential of recycling, particularly when it comes to electronic components. And he doesn't necessarily mean you and I - whose knowledge of batteries probably ends after knowing which way to insert them into the remote control - but the big companies that could do it on a larger scale.