EV bug conversion

[Relyt610]

Hey folks,

I have some questions related to the EV conversion kit(s) available.
Although I love me some good beetle chirp, I am intrigued by EV West's kits and I am hoping someone could share their experience with me.

If you own an EV VW, what are you thoughts on how it performs, pros and cons?

[APPLEGREENVW]

The EV kits will be better and cheaper 25 years from now. Hopefully air-cooled VW's will be cheaper to buy again.
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Parts for sale https://www.thesamba.com/vw/classifieds/search.php?username=APPLEGREENVW

02/76 Beetle sedan

[bilbo939]

The noise is what made me love them as a child, and what I love about my beetle now. Just couldn't do it. But if I had 2 for some reason.. Probably one day.
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'71 1302-S
'03 T4 2.5 TDI
'04 Golf 1.9 TDI

[MuzzcoVW]

IMO removing an air cooled VW engine removes the need to own one. Its at least 50 percent of the appeal of driving one (at least) I would never ever consider a subie swap either but at least it sounds proper

[offtherailz1]

I have two 1303's, one my dad got new in 73 and the other was my mum's, she was the second owner, the first being the VW dealership. My mums will be converted to electric in the next 5 years or so, I toyed with Subaru, but the electric route, too me anyway, is my way of recycling that car. I plan on using it as my daily car for my 32 mile round commute.

That said, if I only had one VW, aircooled is where I would stay. Too me, I don't see the point in owning one classic car and taking the heart and soul out of it. We nearly all own these cars as a hobby, and what makes it a hobby if not understanding how these things tick?

Here in the UK, if you want to go electric you take your current classic to a specialist and they convert it. What would be interesting is if you had a forecourt of classic's that had been converted, how quick would they sell??? We could possibly see what the demand was then, or maybe, because we have no such garage that I am aware of here, perhaps that answers my question

Horses for courses I guess, as long as you enjoy.
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“ My worry is, that if I die suddenly, my wife will sell everything VW for what she thinks I paid for it.”

Cuppa tea man, living in a latte world.

1973 1303, one previous owner, my Dad
1975 1303, Fourth owner, mum 1975 to 2014, me from 2017
https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=711269&highlight=
https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=740901

[TDCTDI]

Why would you want to piss away that much money to convert a vehicle to be an EV? Like many project cars, of all makes & models, ever get completed? How many EV conversions are ever completed? And of those, how many ever see more than 5,000 miles after being converted? And after all of these conversions are done, the cars sure as hell aren’t worth the vehicle’s initial value PLUS all of the money thrown at it to convert it.


In addition to diminished value, I hope you will have the mechanical aptitude & working knowledge of the electrical drive systems because you’re highly unlikely of finding someone to work on it after the fact.
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Everybody born before 1975 has a story, good, bad, or indifferent, about a VW.


GOFUNDYOURSELF, quit asking everyone to do it for you!


An air cooled VW will make you a hoarder.


Do something, anything, to your project every day, and you will eventually complete it.

[viiking]

It is akin to cutting out the face of the Mona Lisa and pasting a photocopy of da Vinci over the gaping hole.
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1968 1500 RHD Lotus White Beetle since birth. In the hospital for major surgery
1966 Lancia Flavia Pininfarina Coupe - in the waiting room
Discharged: 1983 Vanagon, 1974 1800 Microbus,1968 Low Light,1968 Type 3

[kirk1015]

Not a chance for me. The Bug stays with an Air-Cooled engine. Thats part of the originality of the car. Unfortunately I can see a time when either each state or the U.S. EPA will ban the Internal Combustion Engine. At that time ANY classic car will have to be converted to EV or parked.
It's only a matter of time before the environmentalists get their hands on classic cars. Heck they are complaining about the U.S.S. Arizona in Hawaii that is still leaking fuel into Pearl Harbor almost 80 years later.

I have honestly looked at VW's new I.D. 4 in person and its not bad. I'm not a big fan of SUV's as I think they are not necessary but to each their own.
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Jim Douglas....I am Not.

[MACJELLY58]

I too have considered the EV route for my project. It's far from stock, so I wasn't worried about the value going down(it's already there!). The torque and acceleration got me thinking. My problem was, like you, I love me some chirp! With EV, there is no real need for the shifting of gears. That was the major tipping point for me. Just no FUN with out slamming the clutch and hearing the WHOOOP!! Just my thoughts.

[gilbertma]

Poster #2 hit on the big issue- cost. I had a couple of bugs when I was in my late teens/early 20's, they were cheap to drive and easy to work on. Now I'm past 60 and last year I started converting a 74 Super to electric. I had been watching Jehu Garcia's youtubes and thought it would be cool to do a bus, but buses aren't cheap and I needed to keep the project close to 20k. I found a bug that had been partially restored, new pans, most of the body/rubber redone. The motor didn't work, I got the car for 6k. I got it running again but it didn't seem to be as fun as I remembered. The owners manual says 0-60 in 19 sec's and I believe them. I found a company in Texas that does electric car stuff- Hawkeye Innovations Llc. The owner is 21 y.o. Adam Lansing who did his first car when he was 16. He designed a Systems Control Module that ties the subsystems together, battery management, DC conversion, motor control, cooling pump, etc. He pointed out that if I bought all the parts from him, he would give me tech guidance when needed. EV west is a great company, but they have a three year waiting list for conversions and they'll sell you the parts but that's about it. Adam helped a lot when it came time to program the BMS and the motor control. I was able to do the conversion in 100 days (I'm a retired aircraft mech) and now I have around 1000 miles on the electric drive. So much easier and faster to drive than the old gas burner although it is limited to 100 miles range. But that's oK because I went into this project trying to build a "golf cart" type vehicle that I could use to run errands, go to the beach, etc. This is a golf cart that you can drive on the highway and do 100mph in, even though I've only done 85 so far (cops!) This car has a Hyper9 120hp motor with five Tesla model S modules, about 27kwh. A Tesla model S has 16 modules, 85-100kwh depending on model, around 300 miles range.

Since I brought up cost in the beginning, I paid $7000 for five Tesla modules, $4250 for the motor/controller, about $800-ish for System Control, $900-ish for Battery management, $600-ish for DC converter, and $800-ish for 3.3kw charger. A couple of hundred for charging cord, high voltage welding cable, etc., I'm around 22k for my "golf cart". Which is kind of funny because my neighbor has a real golf cart that he has spent 11k on.
Before you start on something like this though, you better learn a whole lot about batteries, high voltage wiring, etc. I spent three months just reading everything I could get my hands on and I still had lots to learn mid-project.
But that's sort of why we do things like this isn't it?

[squeegee_boy]

That is beautiful work, gilbertma!

Robyn
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1984 FrankenSyncro Westy. EJ25 RMW kit
1971 Super Beetle with an EJ22. Oh yes. Daily driver

[olspeed]

It looks like it's well done but what is the range? Why would I want to convert to EV when all I could do is use it to go get the mail.
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66- Ghia
76-Beetle

[squeegee_boy]

[Dark Earth]

The good news is, you wouldn't have to worry about your fuel filter burning your car to the ground. The bad news is, you'd have to worry about the batteries burning your car to the ground.
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My Build: '69 Baja - Dark Earth Version

~I'm almost done. I just lack finishing up.~

[gilbertma]

Yup, the range thing is what stops most people other than the price. I could add another five modules in the luggage area at a cost of 7k and 280 lbs, and have a range of 200 miles, but that would make the car slower and more expensive. The big thing about this car is it keeps my Ram 1500 parked when I need to do short trips, it's a jacked up 4x4 and gets 14 mpg. I used the truck to go get this car in Texas and trailer it back. It was 1000 miles there and the same back from Florida. Since I just put 1000 miles on the electric bug, I feel like I just redeemed half those travel miles. I'll agree it's an expensive way to keep my truck "fresher" and "less used" but there is some value in that. Once you put the miles on the truck you can't take them back off. I didn't do this project to save money obviously, but I approached it like it was a college course where I was going to learn a lot about electric cars. So far over the last 4 months I'm averaging about 63 miles a week so the range is not an issue. I usually drive until the display's around 50% and when I get home I plug it in for about 4 hrs. This puts about 14kw back into the battery pack at a cost of .09 cents a kwh that's around $1.26 for a half tank of "juice". Another factor to consider is- How long is the used battery pack going to last? The modules in this conversion all came from the same car (Tesla) that had less than 50k miles. Some Tesla owners are getting over 150k miles from their original packs. If I averaged 100 miles a week (5200/year) and only got another 50k, it would last almost 10 years. I'm 61 years young, lets see what lives longer, me or the batteries. LoL

[kpf]

[gilg]

I have definitely considered doing an EV swap - probably not in a bug, but in a Porsche 912. Why? 912s are not very desirable or collectible, fairly affordable, and I think it would be a fantastic daily driver around town.

The resale value doesn't concern me - and I don't feel like it should, since I'm in this to enjoy my cars, not make money on them. It's a hobby for a reason.

[gilbertma]

[olspeed]

The main thing about electric in general is lack of infrastructure and until it is in place an electric vehicle for anything other that to just get the mail or go to the local Gas station/quick stop(they are is the same location anyway) and pick up an outdated jug of milk is out of the question. For example the closest place to recharge a electric car is right at 100 miles away but it is at an auto repair shop that is only open from 8-5, they have 1 plug in and it's in a shady part of town... sounds lovely. That is going south but going north... well good luck as there is nothing, you better carry your suitcase generator with you for when your out of juice your done, so build a fire and cuddle up to that lone Moose or bear to keep warm while you wait for the thing to charge.
As for changing my Bug or my Ghia I wouldn't do it anyway as it would ruin the simplicity of the car and that is why I have them, my wife gets a new car every few years especially when we still had to commute but I think that will end now that we don't have to any more and for me I have always driven one of my VW's even when I was doing that.
As one of the other posters stated the regulations are for new vehicles only at this time and with the approval of the Willow project up here and the fact that we produce our own gas in state(no diesel only gas) we should be good for as long as I will still be driving.
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66- Ghia
76-Beetle

[gilbertma]

When I got my charging cord for the house, I got the one with the J1772 plug for the car end and a Nema 14-50 on the other end, this is an RV 220 plug. So if I'm not near a public charge station, I can take my cord with me and plug in anywhere that has a 40A RV/stove receptacle or use an adapter and plug into a dryer receptacle, my charger only draws 32A.