https://www.youtube.com/embed/ZVtOss1U7_s
How long does it take to convert a car like an old-school VW Beetle from an internal combustion engine to a fully electric powertrain?
At least in this case, just one day.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/ZVtOss1U7_s
How long does it take to convert a car like an old-school VW Beetle from an internal combustion engine to a fully electric powertrain?
At least in this case, just one day.
I love that!
In reply to SV reX :
For some reason, I think old VWs like Beetles just work really well as electric cars. I'd totally buy one/pay someone to build one if I had the means.
How quickly the disassembly of a Beetle can go makes this seems like cheating.
Also, where's the heat in this one? I would miss the fumes.
That is just wonderfully awesome!
I want one! But the cost is just out of my reach by about all of it.
BTW, nice tie in on St Paddys day with the green Beetle. Er, the Beetle that's green. No, I mean the green Beetle that is green. That doesn't make sense.
That car.
In reply to Colin Wood :
There really needs to be somebody getting the electric motor swap game going. Making it this easy, a bolt up affair. They would make a lot of money.
In reply to Definitely gone now :
There totally is. The reason people think it's easy to swap a Beetle is because of EV West. And coincidentally, that same engineering lets you swap a 911. Check it out - you can buy it online and have it shipped: https://www.evwest.com/catalog/index.php?cPath=40&osCsid=c1b4509c8e234854a52dfe20252de543
It's like LS swaps. There are easy bolt-up options out there, but they can never be universal.
Huh. I'm pretty sure the air-cooled flat four is the most endearing thing about old Beetles. I owned one. Entertaining enough, I suppose, but won't get another, gas or electric.
EV West beetle "complete kit" including batteries = $18K. 90 miles range, 110 Lb ft torque. I guess that's not crazy money. It's all that I need for my local needs. Although what I'd really like to put that into would be an old pickup like this:
It would solve a lot of the unobtanium issues and make it more possible to use as a daily.
I drove one of the first VW bugs that EV west built many years ago ,
Micheal is a very smart guy and the VW ran well for our ride down PCH highway and back to his house ,
The one thing you will notice is how loud the gearbox is and lots of other noises the Bug always had but were covered over by the stock cooling fan.
Wow, that looked like it took them a long time to get that motor out. 
3 guys should be able to do that in 10 min max for a stock bug!
Stock brakes would be... interesting with that conversion. Front disc conversions are very available though.
Not going to be doing that to my Ghia, but I would certainly consider something similar for a Corvair (needs a bigger motor though).
I'm a little torn on this one. While a Beetle would be a good candidate for electrification, this particular one was pretty neat to start with.
In reply to stuart in mn :
That's the same sort of thing we used to run into on the V8 conversions. You're putting a lot of money into this, you want to end up with the nicest possible result. So you have to start with a nice car like this one, or a Mazdaspeed Miata in our case. But then the purists get upset that you're desecrating one of the good ones and not dealing with some bombed out shell. That is the purist's problem, starting with a crap car makes no sense :)
Keith Tanner said:In reply to stuart in mn :
....starting with a crap car makes no sense :)
You clearly are not aware of the current trend in custom cars. Especially VW's.
I am aware of people purposefully making their cars look like junk, I just choose to ignore it :) But the owners of those cars would probably decry the desecration of a car with "perfect patina!" instead.
Keith Tanner said:In reply to Definitely gone now :
There totally is. The reason people think it's easy to swap a Beetle is because of EV West. And coincidentally, that same engineering lets you swap a 911. Check it out - you can buy it online and have it shipped: https://www.evwest.com/catalog/index.php?cPath=40&osCsid=c1b4509c8e234854a52dfe20252de543
It's like LS swaps. There are easy bolt-up options out there, but they can never be universal.
But it should/could be. The only thing that would change mechanically would be the bellhousing adapter. Electrically, someone needs to make an all in one, universal, central canbus computer that handles everything, and is self learning. It reads the error codes of not having certain sensors and modules in place, and then it learns what signals are needed. The unit then provides emulation of said sensors/modules until all issues are solved. Connect it to 12v and go. I know I make that sound really easy, and I know that is an incredibly complex thing to accomplish, but you cannot tell me that can't be done.
So... what would the purists have to say about ECC doing Tesla-swaps on four (4) Testarossas?
The guy from ECC has said in other vids that he always has a goal to make as few mods as possible to the original chassis etc so that the conversions are reversible. Or at least that's the case for their kit to put a tesla drive unit into a classic Mini.
Definitely gone now said:Keith Tanner said:In reply to Definitely gone now :
There totally is. The reason people think it's easy to swap a Beetle is because of EV West. And coincidentally, that same engineering lets you swap a 911. Check it out - you can buy it online and have it shipped: https://www.evwest.com/catalog/index.php?cPath=40&osCsid=c1b4509c8e234854a52dfe20252de543
It's like LS swaps. There are easy bolt-up options out there, but they can never be universal.
But it should/could be. The only thing that would change mechanically would be the bellhousing adapter. Electrically, someone needs to make an all in one, universal, central canbus computer that handles everything, and is self learning. It reads the error codes of not having certain sensors and modules in place, and then it learns what signals are needed. The unit then provides emulation of said sensors/modules until all issues are solved. Connect it to 12v and go. I know I make that sound really easy, and I know that is an incredibly complex thing to accomplish, but you cannot tell me that can't be done.
"Just a bellhousing adapter" :) And all the mounting options. And cooling. And the battery locations, and the controller locations, and this is all the initial knee-jerk reaction to the actual physical packaging and not the magical electronics.
Like I said, it's just like an LS motor. They'll fit in just about anything, but that's a long way from them just being a bellhousing adapter away from fitting in everything. When we do an LS swap in an ND Miata, we have to provide a specific radiator, fan setup, steering rack and tie rods and tie rod adapters, steering column, front subframe, headers, exhaust system, fuel system, clutch master cylinder with adapter, shifter, rear subframe, undercar bracing/mounts, driveshaft, halfshafts, rear fascia and a bunch of other little bits and pieces - and that's before we get into electronics.
CAN is a communications standard, not a standard of content. It defines what a message looks like in terms of number of bytes and how they deal with collisions and the like. It has nothing at all to do with the content of those messages. Something as simple as a speed signal is totally different from one manufacturer to another, so you can't just have a universal CAN computer unless it knows all of the specifications for every possible manufacturer it can be in. Possible, yes, with a huge amount of software engineering and constant updates if the manufacturers are willing to share this data. They're not :) And even then, it would only work on cars with a CAN network. How would my 2002 E39 react? It runs an ibus network. So possible but unachievable electronically.
I can't even plug my Apple laptop into the monitors my desktop Mac uses :D
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