CHICKAMAUGA, Ga. --- Seventeen-year-old Matt Glenfield has found a way to beat high gas prices. The Chickamauga teen built an electric car using batteries from a golf cart.

“I have always liked tinkering with things and I used to play with electric toy cars when I was little. I was always taking things apart and stuff like that,” said Glenfield, who takes welding classes at night at Northwestern Technical College in Rock Spring.

Glenfield, the son of Gail and Bert Glenfield, will be a senior this year at Gordon Lee High School in Chickamauga.

“I’ll have my degree finished (at Northwestern) in welding right around when I finish high school,” he said. “So then, I’ll probably do auto mechanics and get a degree in that at Northwestern.”

Glenfield said he enjoys customizing golf carts and sells them on eBay.

“I actually got my first golf cart about five or six years ago and then I put a lift kit on it and just started getting into the mechanics of it …. just working on them, tinkering with them and taking them apart,” he said.

Building an electric car

Glenfield bought his car from a man in East Brainerd. From the start, he planned to transform it into an electric vehicle.

“I had these golf carts that we bought from Atlanta, and then the club car motor, and all the electronics, I had that, so I put that stuff into it,” he said.

According to Glenfield, converting the original motor-engine car into an electric-powered one, by using golf cart batteries, was a real learning experience.

Glenfield said the process of switching took him about three weeks.

“But it was constant work every day — just constant work welding, cutting and fabricating all the mounts for it and the adapter plate,” he said.

VIDEO: Matt Glenfield talks about his electric car

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Glenfield said his electric car has been running for a little more than a month and he has logged more than 200 miles so far.

“It is licensed and insured,” his mother Gail said. “We have a tag on it and the (original) car is 25 years old, so we have an antique tag I got for it, and it is insured through USSA, so we take it out on the road.”

Glenfield said he travels in the car to a friend’s house, six miles away, and he goes to the end of town and drives around the horseshoe curve in front of Gordon Lee High School and to Leewood Estates subdivision.

Glenfield said the car runs entirely on electric power.

“I took all the gas engine out, with all the parts for that. Then, to mount the motor to the transmission, I cut out a big 3/8-inch plate and that mounts to the transmission. The motor then bolts to that. I had to weld a spacer on that to move the motor back and then it just bolts up that way,” he said. “I had to make all the custom motor mounts, because the engine was not in there and that was what would hold the transmission in, so it is all custom mounts and the battery racks and all of that and I had to weld those.”

According to Glenfield, most of the work is a lot of precision cutting, taking measurements and welding.

Glenfield said Northwestern Technical College is where he learned to do this kind of mechanical work.

“A lot of it is just doing it and jumping right in,” he said.

Glenfield said he used cardboard boxes to duplicate the batteries to help attain the precise measurements. “It is hard to put all of these batteries under there with very little space,” he said.

According to Glenfield, his electric car uses six 8-volt batteries, which power the motor and which makes it a 48-volt system.

The vehicle’s accessories run on a separate 12-volt battery.

“You just plug the car into the charger and it charges up,” he said.

A simple power outlet can make the charge, which can take 6-8 hours.

Glenfield said he has reached 45 mph. On a flat level surface, the car travels easily at 35 mph.

According to Glenfield, it took a single golf cart to complete his electric car.

“It is a good car, because it is small and lightweight,” he said. “You have to have a five-speed, because if you have an automatic transmission, the shift points would be all off of the motor, but it really drives like an automatic.”

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Matt Glenfield can be reached by email at xtremecartz@comcast.net, or by calling (423) 364-1370 or (706) 375-8716.

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Glenfield said a clutch isn’t needed.

According to Glenfield, he plans to construct another electric vehicle, but upgrade the original car first and try to sell it.

“It should (after the upgrade) have about a 50- to 60-mile range and it should go faster than the original engine would go. It will be more powerful,” he said.

Asked why this work is important to him, Glenfield said, “To reduce the demand on oil…. Gas prices continue to go up and you have to have some other type of fuel or source of energy. You can get solar panels and all of that to help power the electric cars and refill them that way, so you don’t have to plug into the grid or anything.”

According to Glenfield, his biggest goal is to meet the best range, which is 60-80 miles on a single charge.

“GM is going to come out with the Chevy Volt. The range on that is only 40 miles, but I think I can beat that with a lot more range,” he said. “The more range you get, the speed generally just comes with that because you will have a higher voltage system and a bigger motor.”