You can power a G-Wiz EV with 500 vapes, and this YouTuber proved it
The world would be a better place if all of us were as willing to upcycle as aggressively as YouTuber Chris Doel, who has demonstrated that batteries from 500 disposable vapes can actually power one of the UK's most famous electric vehicles.
Doel moonlights as a software and electronics engineer at Jaguar Land Rover when not undertaking wild engineering experiments for internet views – like building a 50-volt, 500-vape battery stack that's able to power his house. For this project, he knew he'd need a fairly compact EV that doesn't suck up too much battery power too fast.
Enter the Reva G-Wiz.
Youtube Video
UK residents and avid Top Gear watchers are likely familiar with the oft-maligned early 2000's micro EV. It was infamous for being incredibly small, slow, and exempt from a number of regulations because it was classified as a heavy quadricycle instead of an actual automobile, meaning safety was a bit of an afterthought.
The Reva G-Wiz may be one of the worst vehicles ever made, but it's a perfect candidate for trial by 500-vape battery. Because it comes from an era when EVs didn't really have much in the way of computerized safety features, it was easy for Doel to replace the old-fashioned commercially made lead acid batteries with his homemade vape stack.
Because it's ridiculously small, he expected the G-Wiz would also support the meager 50V available from the Vape stack – as Doel himself points out in the video, the G-Wiz only had a 48V battery pack to begin with.
A bit of tinkering later, and Doel had himself a working vapemobile.
Put that garbage back to work
In both the vapemobile video and his previous story about the 500-vape stack being used to power his home, Doel has come out publicly against the scourge of disposable nicotine vaporizers and the mountains of trash they've created. The UK banned disposable vapes in 2025 to stop nicotine use in children and reduce piles of recyclable garbage. In countries like the US, where disposable vapes are still legal, nearly half a million end up in the trash daily.
In other words, Doel doesn't just want to prove that he can use these "disposable" batteries to power an EV - he wanted to prove they were enough to keep it running, and he did, getting 18 miles out of the thing before the batteries finally gave out on him.
Okay, he was nowhere near close to matching the blistering top speeds of an original G-Wiz (50MPH), with the system safety-limited to around 35MPH to prevent overtaxing the battery pack, but Doel managed to take his vapemobile to a fast-food drive through, the store, and then most of the way back home before it gave out on him - pretty good for a homemade rig of salvaged vape batteries.
"We all need a big think as to what we actually classify as waste, because sadly planned obsolescence is becoming more and more common," Doel said at the end of the video.
It's not clear what state the battery rig was in once the car was towed home, or if Doel has managed to get it running again, either in the car or as a home battery system. He didn't respond right away to questions for this story, but we'll update it if he does. ®
