A Gaping Need: Electric Conversions
January 25th, 2008Here’s a somewhat long-winded explanation of why I am interested in doing electric car conversions. (At some point, this page will contain steps I’ve taken with my conversions!) Enjoy!
I had a “stock photography site” idea around 2003. The place I was working for had a photographer that would take extra photos that had nothing to do with what we needed while on shoot for a client. They were real good, and I thought it would be great to take advantage of these shots and start an independent stock photography site that was affordable. Not like the giants of the day: Getty Images. $200 or more for a photograph? Wow, I can’t afford that. We used PhotoDisc royalty free stock photo CDs (from $100-$300 ea.) most of the time, but it would be nice to have an alternative. And a good one at that! A gaping hole. This is where my ideas come from.
We’d just create the site for clients, you know? And maybe it would take off.
Specifically powerful, I figured if it were possible to gather up the search terms of what the people were looking for, we’d be able to build a better stock photography library. [I now know that is EXTREMELY easy to do!]
My boss at the time thought it was more trouble that it was worth and we didn’t do it. iStockPhoto came out around 2000 and was relatively unknown for a while - (nobody I knew had found out about it until probably 2005 or 2006).
But, it was last year, 2007 (I think), that Getty bought them. So they must have definitely been doing very well for themselves. Honestly, I am surprised to see it still in business in the same general form that they were in. I figured that Getty would act like the big oil companies and keep raising the rates of the photos until it was around the price of their royalty free photography. Thankfully, they haven’t.
I’m now trying to talk with Jim about submitting his photography to some of these stock photography sites. (Please help me convince him! He’s awesome! Here’s a link to Jim’s site.) Some stock photo sites offer 60¢ on the $1 for each photo sold on their sites. I know he could do it. I’m even considering trying to start a stock photography website myself, but for Jim to be the only photographer, it might be better for him to go with something that is already established than for me to draw a mass amount of photographers to my site. People GO to iStockPhoto to get stock photos. New sites come up, but unless you’ve got an extremely comprehensive library of images, people will pass you by because they’ve already purchased credits at iStockPhoto.com.
Anyway, it was a need I had at the time (to have good, new, relatively inexpensive stock photography at my graphic-designing-fingertips) that made me think of creating my own stock photography website.
There is another gaping need. Right now.
That’s why I’m approaching an electric car conversion. If I can convert mine, and it goes well enough, I can buy cars with good bodies and not so good engines and strip ‘em out and convert them to battery power.
There are quite a few start-up companies that are now currently racing to create new electric cars, but most of the population doesn’t want to (or can’t) pay $50 K - $100 K or more for an electric car. Mine, I am hoping would have an end cost of $20 K or less, making it more affordable for the general public.
Originally, I had gotten depressed to know that there are so many start-up companies on the verge of releasing their cars to the public. I spoke with my sister about it and she was very wise to know that there will always be an undercurrent of need for used car conversions, even if new electric cars come to the mainstream. Strictly on cost. Then, there’s the factor that some people prefer specific models of cars & the new electric car manufacturers wouldn’t be able to produce such a proliferation of styles (at least, at first.)
I know I could sell ‘em faster than I could convert ‘em.
There’s enough new cars made each year to fill the worlds dumps. By converting cars, I’m extending the life of the car.
If I get bored with strictly doing conversions, the teacher in me may want to have a big enough shop to have lessons available to people who are interested in doing conversions themselves.
I can dream.
Let me know if you share this dream. We can help each other. Drop me an email.