Britain tosses a million disposable vapes daily into landfills, but Chris Doel saw power sources where others saw waste. The 26-year-old Jaguar Land Rover engineer harvested lithium-ion cells from 500 discarded vapes, built a 50V battery pack, and transformed an early-2000s Reva G-Wiz microcar into a functional electric vehicle. The result? An 18-mile range, 35mph top speed, and the world’s first USB-C charging car.
Your daily commute suddenly looks different when someone proves trash can literally drive you to work.
Engineering Magic From Electronic Waste
Doel’s methodical approach turned disposable tech into a viable transportation system.
This wasn’t some weekend hack job with duct tape and wishful thinking. Doel individually tested each vape cell for voltage and resistance, then arranged them in a modular series-parallel configuration using 3D-printed housings. The custom battery management system monitors voltage, manages thermal safety, and limits current to 120A continuous—far below the original G-Wiz’s 350A rating, but sufficient for the 400kg microcar.
Safety measures included real-time smartphone monitoring and full insurance disclosure. The aluminum enclosure housing the battery pack mounts cleanly in the vehicle, creating a legitimate road-legal EV that passed its first startup without drama.
No sparks, no smoke, no engineering disasters—just pure functionality from components designed to be thrown away.
Real Roads, Real Performance
The vape-powered car handled public roads, shopping trips, and even a drive-thru run.
Testing moved beyond the driveway when Doel took his creation on actual errands. The car maintained 35mph on public roads, charged via USB-C at 138W (imagine plugging your car into a laptop charger), and even recovered energy through regenerative braking that returned about 10A to the battery.
Eighteen miles later, the pack depleted completely—but not before proving its viability for short urban commutes. Compare this to a Tesla requiring roughly 12,000 battery cells, and Doel’s 500-cell experiment suddenly looks impressively efficient.
Your neighborhood grocery run doesn’t need hypercar performance, just reliable point-A-to-point-B transportation.
Rethinking Electronic Waste
If you’re tired of planned obsolescence, this project shows an alternative path forward.
Doel’s experiment arrives as Britain prepares to ban disposable vapes in 2025, highlighting how much functional technology gets discarded daily. “We all need a big think as to what we actually classify as waste,” he noted.
This vape-powered car won’t replace your Tesla, but it demonstrates how discarded electronics contain recoverable value. The project challenges assumptions about battery recycling and shows DIY engineering can create practical solutions from industrial waste streams.
