A UK creator found a wild second life for hundreds of tossed-out vape batteries: He used them to run a tiny electric car, reported Hackaday.
YouTuber Chris Doel (@Chris_doel) collected 500 small rechargeable batteries from discarded single-use vapes and wired them together into one massive pack. He then dropped that pack into a G-Wiz, a compact electric vehicle that originally came with aging lead-acid cells.
In a YouTube video, Doel takes the battery pack he'd been using to run his workshop and loads it into the G-Wiz's rear seat for a test drive. The little car maxes out around 50 miles per hour, and Doel chose to charge it through USB-C, so refueling is a slow process. He reinforced the pack, wrapped it in protective material, and housed it in a metal case to reduce risk with all those reclaimed batteries sitting right behind him.
The build is entertaining to watch, but it points to a real and growing problem. Single-use vapes are piling up on sidewalks, near schools, and outside bars across the UK and other countries. That litter is ugly, and the small devices can pop bike and car tires when they wind up in the road. Each one holds a lithium battery and trace chemicals that can enter soil and water over time.
The health toll on users is serious too. Nicotine addiction and lung damage are among the documented risks of regular vaping.
Governments in several countries have started cracking down on single-use vapes, but millions of units still wind up in landfills and gutters each year. Doel's project shows those batteries still hold a charge and can be repurposed, though cramming 500 of them into a tiny car's rear seat is more proof of concept than a daily driver solution.
"I genuinely can't believe this worked..." Doel commented on his own video.
Viewers had fun with it, too. "Next time I see a tiny car slowing me down in traffic, I'm gonna cut it a break because it might be vape powered," one commenter wrote.
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