Electric is obviously a better way to go, but he used effort and things he already had because he couldn't he couldn't afford to fill up his minivan. I recently was shopping for an EV, looked for used ones online and sorted by price, the cheapest one within 100 miles was over $12k. Even an electric bicycle is a few hundred dollars minimum, and it won't have any more utility than what he built for free. He might be wishing to get away from gas, but just not have a real option.