Who's done an EV conversion project

[djacobow]

I'm thinking of taking on an EV conversion project.

It seems that most people who do this want to take an older "classic" sports or otherwise eye-catching vehicle and refit it with a big electric motor for insane performance. They also seem to be comfortable doing major alterations to car frame, creating engine mount, mating to drive shaft, etc. Unsurprisingly, they find the electric bits the most intimidating.

I'm the opposite in just about every respect. I want a boring city car that will not get much attention. Range really isn't that important. This would mostly be a soccer-dropper-offer and grocery-getter. I'm very comfortable with electronics, but have none-point-none metal fabrication skills (or tools). I am moderately handy with my ICE cars, doing things like oil changes, new plugs, belts, etc, myself, but never anything major inside the engine.

Anybody have any advice or tales to tell?

[themadhippy]

if its avaliable in the states maybe take at the vintage voltage tv series,they've done some interesting conversions.

[Someone]

I'm very comfortable with electronics, but have none-point-none metal fabrication skills (or tools). I am moderately handy with my ICE cars, doing things like oil changes, new plugs, belts, etc, myself, but never anything major inside the engine.

Flip it around and find an old/outdated electric car for you to modernise (or at least re-battery) ? Perhaps even one of those early DIY ones where someone else has done the mechanics and engineering/paperwork for it to be road legal.

If you want a challenge, the Prius platform is ubiquitous and cheap second hand, and there are 3rd party battery upgrades available. Perhaps you're the person to work out how to make them fully electric and delete the engine? It would require some mechanics but relatively easy for an exhaust/repair shop to do as a job, most of the work would probably be electronics and embedded firmware.

[Siwastaja]

I have been working on like 2 conversion projects but neither really never finished, but they were more like learning/experimentation projects we lost motivation at (happens all the time to me). Specifically, we were experimenting with rewinding of 3-phase industrial AC induction motors (to run at higher frequency / lower voltage), ACIM inverter design (FPGA control + IGBT modules), and BMS. The BMS design went the furthest and was in actual road use in a second hand commercial conversion EV, one of those of early 1990's which originally had lead acid batteries and which we converted into LFP bricks.

You may want to take a look at my friend's Youtube videos about the project which used full custom rewound induction motor + our own inverter:

[Berni]

Doing an EV conversion properly can take a LOT of work.

It is not as simple as ripping out the engine, bolting in an electric motor and throwing a giant battery in the trunk. Firstly regular cars are not designed to be electric so you have to be creative with packing the battery into places not meant to hold a battery. Often means splitting the battery in multiple modules. Then there are all the systems that interact with the engine that need sorting out. The brake booster usually uses the engines vaccum to work. The power steering hydraulic pump is driven by the engine. The air conditioning compressor is also driven on the engine Then if you want a modernish car there will be computer boxes that might not be happy with you removing the engine. Simple ABS brakes might still work, but ESP will be unhappy when it can't talk to the engine. An automatic transmission also won't be happy not being able to talk to the engine computer.

But when it comes into more modern cars you will have even more electronical dickery with the dash being full of computers and screens that won't be happy with you ripping stuff out.

All of these are reasons why you see conversions done on flashy classic cars. If you are going to put SO much work into it, then you want to do it to a car that is special in some way, not some cheep boring eco shit box. Also the older cars are much simpler, no aircon, no power steering, the most advanced piece of electrics is the blinker relay. People do this as a hobby project, so they want to make something special.

If you just want an EV, then just buy a used entry level EV like a Nissan Leaf or something. Sure it is not cheap, but a DIY EV conversion is also not cheap once you sum up all the pieces you need to buy, not even factoring in the 'cost' of your time.

[Siwastaja]

The Suzuki Alto as pictured from late 1980's or so was small enough not to even have brake booster, let alone power steering, greatly simplifying the process. Still, we never finished it. Just building motor mounts, shaft coupling, designing battery pack modules and doing all the wiring is a lot of work. If you have all those components ready-to-go and are super motivated to get the car running, then of course it's well doable. On the other hand, if you just want to experiment with self-developed components, then the rest (integration work) into a working car can become daunting.

[Berni]

That car is a pretty good target for a EV conversion tho.

It is old enough to look special on the road when fixed up into a tidy condition, while at the same time such a small car means you don't need as powerful of a motor and as big of batteries.

What i refereed to as boring cheep eco boxes are things like a 2005 Renault Clio or say a Toyota Camry over the pond there. Those you can get on the used market really cheep for when the goal is to make a really cheap EV. The result of that would be an EV version of a 10 to 20 year old car that was not even a very good car even when brand new, while the amount of money thrown into the project can easily end up costing as much or even more than just buying a cheap used EV.

Unfortunately EVs often don't make financial sense yet in most places in the world for a lot of the average people. The regular internal combustion cars are just so plentiful and fill the used market that you can buy one and then buy gasoline for it for many years, still ending up cheaper than buying a EV. But they will catch up eventually. The EVs will get cheaper as production volumes go up and the market gets filled with used ones.

[Lukas52]

I have converted a Go Cart (originally 75cc two stroke) to use the electric motors from a hybrid car, does that count?

Not road legal or sensible, or even safe in any way tho.

Would not recommend it to be honest.

[mikeselectricstuff]

Check out the openinverter forum https://openinverter.org/forum/
A lot of work has been done on repurposing Toyota/lexus hybrid drive units for conversions, so converting a cheap car which already uses these would seem a good start without needing much if any mechanical work.

[tunk]

Maybe see if you can find a cheap Leaf with a bad/dead battery.