Electric Insight Conversion

[smiracle]

Hi,
I have been an electric vehicle technician for many years doing R&D and testing of many types of electric cars and trucks. Some of this work has included converting internal combustion engine vehicles to electric. My first conversion was a 1967 3 cyl. 2 stroke Saab 96 that I did back in 1992. The most recent is the Insight with lithium batteries and an Azure drive. Where as the old Saab was primitave and a bit scary to drive, the Insight is closing in on perfection. Eventually we will have production vehicles with composite bodies and hub motors but for now this is the best a guy on a dirt road in Vermont can hope to make. https://sites.google.com/site/electricinsight/Home
smiracle

[Insightful Trekker]

Well I was hoping for more of a history of the process you undertook. With the why and wherefore's explained. The pictures give a nice but somewhat limited overview of what looks like a VERY professional conversion

Reads like its simply a "For Sale" advertisement. As such you may also choose to post it in the Buy Sell forum too, with a link for _technical_ discussions back to this thread.

As a newbie to the forums I would ask you _review_ the Buy Sell forum rules (stickied at the top of that forum) and DO NOT include price negotiations _anywhere_ on the forums.

To ALL members: Don't like the price Then take those comments (for purposes of rule interpretation a "negotiation") to email, also as per forum rules.

[retepsnikrep]

Agreed very interesting, but can we have a shed load more pics and some detail of the conversion please.

Does it retain the oem instrument panel, does it work?

BMS?

Cells? etc etc.

[smiracle]

OK,
Yes, I am trying to find someone to buy the next one but I was thinking this group would be interested in seeing that this is being done. The history is fairly straight forward. Years ago I converted 2 Insights for a battery R&D company in NY who needed a platform with which to test their batteries. I only got to drive one of those and that was only for 5 miles but I knew it was a good car right away. So here it is, 2008 and we still can't buy an electric car in America. I find this unacceptable so that drives my political interest. Also, I have a good deal of mechanical curiosity and had to make more of these to find out just how good they could be. Finally we have some good battery choices and that enables me to put this thing together. The cells are LG Chem from S Korea packaged with a BMI by American Electric Vehicles. The motor, inverter and final drive are from Azure dynamics. The process is pretty straight forward. You remove the engine, hold the electric drive where you want it to be then make metal pieces to hold it there. The drive shafts are half Honda and half GM, welded together in the middle. Next, take out everything in the rear and figure out how the heck to fit the batteries, then fabricate the pieces necessary to keep them there. It's not rocket science though some good scales are needed to calculate weight and balance. The instrument cluster is mostly inop. The speedo and odometer are driven off the inverter but that's about it. The center console holds the volt and amp gauges and the state of charge gauge. The rear deck is 1/8" aluminum that provides a nice platform for carrying stuff and providing containment for the batteries. There is also a vacuum pump for the brakes and electric hydronic heater, both located in the front near the 12 volt battery. A DC-DC converter keeps the 12 volt battery charged.
smiracle

[Insightful Trekker]

Yah,

That would be it in a nutshell.

I was hoping for the unabridged version (or at least something closer to it).

[IamIan]

yeagh

[Ccaptain24]

I looked very seriously at converting a Teilhol (fibre bodied 2cv derivative) http://www.tangara.info/ for commuting; a 40 mile round trip.

[quote="smiracle"]
The process is pretty straight forward. You remove the engine, hold the electric drive where you want it to be then make metal pieces to hold it there... figure out how the heck to fit the batteries, then fabricate the pieces necessary to keep them there. It's not rocket science.

Bob Brant's book makes it pretty clear but is biased towards pickup trucks and dc. Thing is it seems to me you can make it as complicated and expensive or as simple and cheap as you want. If you accept limited range and lead acid batteries you can convert a car for a few thousand pounds (even less if you make your own chopper and resistance speed controller) and a couple of weeks work. The money you save on the conversion will pay for a lot of electricity . Just a shame pusher trailers are illegal in the UK Even with all the best high tech in practice you are unlikely to get much over 200 mile range (EV1 Tesla et al) and at present production levels its going to cost lots.

I bought a car and was about to order the bits when I won a promotion: 200 miles from home. Hence the Insight. It has got a lot more style than the Teilhol though

[clett]

Hi smiracle,

Can you please tell us how many miles per kWh you are getting in routine driving? Presumably you are not using the entire 12 kWh (ie 100% DOD) for the 50 miles driving range.

Cheers,

Clett

[IamIan]

We will have to wait and see what he finds out about his energy use ...

but even if all 12 kWh ( 100% DoD ) are being used ...
that is still only ~ 240Wh / Mile... or more than 4 miles per kWh... which while not great... is still not bad either.

The Volt is getting ~40 Miles out of 16 kWh which makes it at only ~2.5 Miles per kWh.

[clett]

GM are being pretty open about their development process, and the tech guys are saying that the Volt uses only 8 kWh (or 50%) of its available 16 kWh capacity for longevity purposes. They have decided to go with the Compact Power option (surprisingly not A123, who could presumably have supported a greater SOC utilisation) for the batteries. The Volt test-mules are already achieving 40 miles on 8 kWh, or 5 miles per kWh, which is on a par with other recent lithium-ion vehicles (such as the T-zero, Tesla, Mini EV etc). I'd expect an Insight EV to manage at least 6-7 miles per kWh, possibly more depending on how it's done.