Wayland Converts his Insight to EV

[Rush]

FYI

John Wayland, of the EV Racer "White Zombie', of the Wayland Sound system, is converting his 2000 Insight to an EV. He is using a EV1 Motor/transaxle and Dow Kokam LiPol cells.

Read all about it at Wayland’s Words | Stories shared by John Wayland (aka Plasma Boy)

[retepsnikrep]

I wish him good luck with that and am envious of his donated Lithium pack and facilities !!
I wonder if A123 will donate me a 100ah 220V pack for my project?

A couple of things IMHO of course.

I don't think he needs to carry that much capacity, 70kwh !!! Certainly in the UK a 150-200 mile EV would be suffcient, so say 30kwh capacity or even 20kwh at a pinch. Much less weight and better performance as well without all the suspension mods. I would hope to get around 150wh/mile in a lighter setup.

It's a shame he is not using the Insight electronics and motors. It's not really an Insight if you just take out all the innards and stuff some in some high spec EV bits. The AC motor from the EV1 is a nice bit of kit though so I'll let him, off with that LOL

I look forward to seeing how it works out. Hope he gets on OK. He seems to have a lot of resources.

[ackattacker]

That is a really exciting and ambitious project. And I understand the desire to really push the range out to the max. The point is to demonstrate it's possible and reset people's expectations of electric cars to the point where even the long road trip is feasible with drive all day long range. No compromise and a feasible "only car" rather than a "city car".

[Eli]

Awesome project, can't wait to see some numbers from it.

And this pic made me LOL at work:

[Hugh-Falls]

This ain't no shade tree operation like some of us.

A lot of hype and ballyhoo there but little, if anything of substance that can be applied to improving the real Insight experience in the real world.

[Eli]

lol

For Sale: 2000 Honda Insight Running Gear

Geez, little spendy there John..

[2Slow4u]

Thats a nice motor controller that he is using. High density packaging and pretty easy to get set up for any application. It will easily do the trick for this project.

[Blue-Civic-Hybrid]

Very nice project but the cost alone for a "non-sponsored" (aka normal person) would be astronomical! I can't wait to see how it turns out but I would like to really know the final cost of everything.

For everything that he is spending on the EV Insight, you could probably buy a brand new Prius. Just a "S.W.A.G." by me.... ( Scientific Wild Ass Guess)

[2Slow4u]

I'll take a stab at pricing on this project, I'm sure he got the hook up on most of the components and labor, but lets pretend its retail. Keep in mind one off vehicles cost exceptionally more than what you get at the dealership and making everything fit and work right is a process.

Vehicle - $20k (he bought it new but could have gotten a roller for a 3k no problem)

Now for the GO Parts
RMS Controller - $8000
EV1 Motor and transaxle - Pricele$$, but an equivalent high efficiency one and gears would be closer to $4000
71kWh Battery Pack and BMS - $50000-60000
Charger - $2000
Misc Fabrication - $4000-10000

Low end this conversion would be around $71,000 and high end would be $104,000. The bulk of the BOM is the huge battery pack. I haven't seen direct pricing on the cells he is using, but I'm very familiar with LiFePO4 cells and their cost comparison to A123/Dow Kokam cells. You can do a fully managed LiFePO4 pack for around $0.45-50/wH, A123 packs are above $1+/wH, and Dow is a little bit less, I assumed $0.80-0.90/wH fully managed (BMS Included).

[Eli]

/faints...