YouTuber built a car powered by 500 discarded vapes, and drove it 18 miles
SMRTR summary
A tiny electric car humming down a rainy British road has become the world's first vehicle powered entirely by batteries salvaged from discarded vape pens. Engineer Chris Doel noticed that each disposable vape contains a perfectly good rechargeable lithium cell that gets thrown away after just one use, despite being capable of hundreds of charge cycles.
With the UK discarding an estimated million vapes daily, Doel saw an opportunity hiding in plain sight. He extracted, tested, and grouped 500 viable cells from electronic waste, building them into a battery pack that now powers his retrofitted Reva G-Wiz microcar.
The rebuilt vehicle completed an 18-mile test drive at 35 mph, complete with headlights and wipers during rain. Perhaps most charmingly, the car now recharges through a USB-C port, just like a laptop.
While one cell bank eventually tripped during a steep climb, temperatures remained safely cool throughout the journey. Doel's experiment reveals the hidden potential in everyday electronic waste, where premium lithium batteries identical to those in high-end electronics are routinely discarded after minimal use.
SMRTR provides this summary for quick context. The original article belongs to TechSpot.
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