A 27-year-old engineer from Warwickshire decided to give discarded vapes a second life—by turning them into car fuel. Chris Doel collected about 2,000 used disposable vapes from a local shop, cracked them open, and rescued the rechargeable lithium batteries inside. After assembling roughly 500 of those tiny cells into a 3D‑printed battery pack, he plugged it into a 2007 G‑Wiz electric microcar… and it actually worked.
The vape-powered car cruised for about two hours and covered 18 miles, all documented on his YouTube channel. Beyond the cool factor, Doel’s project highlights the massive e‑waste problem and shows how “disposable” tech often contains reusable gold—if you’re willing to get creative with a screwdriver.