Vanagon 100% electric with Chevy Bolt drivetrain

[Abscate]

Isn’t a bolt battery pack 60 kWatt hour?

$2 for 60 kW hour of juice is either heavily subsidized or the meter is upside down. $10 would be market price.

Cost per mile about 1/3- 1/2 that of gas cars in current tax model
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.ssS!

[VicVan]

OP wrote $2 for 100 km / 61 miles.
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'90 Little Blue Truck, 2WD auto, FAS GenV 2.0 NA (AVH)

[Jake de Villiers]

[yabert]

[mo_focus]

Been following your progress for a while, amazing work. Have you managed to install Level3 charger on the vanagon yet?
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1987 Vanagon GL Westfalia
1984 Porsche 944 NA
2013 Ford Escape Titanium
2017 Chevrolet Volt

[yabert]

[Steve M.]

So I just saw in the news online that Bolts have been catching fire when the batteries were being charged to 100% capacity.
It's only been 2 cars so statistic wise it's not...what. It's a fire.

So not trying to be a safety alarmist here, but just posting for fyi for awareness.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/chevy-bolt-ev-recall-battery-warning-fire-charging-park-outdoors/
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This free advice is worth exactly what you paid for it.

There are seven days in a week. Someday is not one of them.

[ZsZ]

[dobryan]

And there have been several Vanagons burned up when their house battery systems malfunctioned. Be careful no matter what you do.
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Dave O
'87 Westy w/ 2002 Subaru EJ25 and Peloquin TBD

"To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive." Robert Louis Stevenson

MD>Canada>AK>WA>OR>CA>AZ>UT>WY>SD
https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=620646

Building a bus for travel in Europe (euroBus)
https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=695371

The Western Syncro build
https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=746794

[?Waldo?]

...or stock A/C wiring, or PS wiring, etc...

[Diy2k]

Vanagon do love catching on fire
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1987 VW Vanagon Wolfsburg Weekender
2012 Ford Transit Connect Xlt

[Crankey]

About the paint, my old boss used to say, looks great at 30 miles an hour...and sometimes I say, don't let perfection be the enemy of the good.
If the paint is thick enough you can always block sand the orange peel and buff it out.
Looks nice to me, I like the green !

[Crankey]

Is this all the battery intrudes into the interior space ?
If that's the case it's really impressive.
That's one thing I've always been concerned about was loss of the vehicle normal interior storage and use spaces. But this is a really minimal loss concidering the gain of the swap. Regardless of various opinions on viability it's undeniable the value of forging more paths to new ways of powering this platform into the future.

[rustythorn]

this makes me miss my old VW but i'm in the works for an even better EV van

http://www.evalbum.com/1581

[yabert]

100 000 Km done, since conversion (140 000 Km on the Chevy Bolt powertrain).
Is I had problems or repairs in 4 years? No, it's an EV, so it's super reliable... no, I just kidding.
Here the news:

-VW related
Ball joints: No body will be surprised to know I had to change lower and upper ball joints in front.
Windows seals: we tried to change window seals because we were tired to have all those water ingress. We end by changing only the hatch door and sliding door seals because installing those seals is such a pain. Looking at rust who progress each day around the windows is frustrating.
Brake: I had to change the discs brake pads on 4 wheels. Considering the amount of regen braking we use during driving (we rarely touch the brake pedal) I was surprised to find worn brake pads last year. I used the GM caliper in the rear and I bet the small pads are working hard to stop this big van. Maybe it's not unusual to change brake pads after 100 000 Km.
Wheel bearing: I had to change front wheels bearings.

-GM related
Battery: there were a recall on the traction batteries of all Chevy Bolt (LG Chem fault), so I asked GM to change my Bolt battery. After having propulse two EV on 104 000 Km, the original battery was swap for a new one last year. A 3 hours job for me and the pallet jack. I'll spare you the boring details, but thank you GM because I have now a bit more range.
Powertrain problem: This one is funny. After 3 years without a single problem with the van, I had to pull down on the highway 4 or 5 times because the van was working as an erratic manner. Really, during those events I was feeling like a real Vanagon driver. Stop on the side of the road, open the motor compartment, unplug/replug 12V battery, look at the Torque Pro app if there is fault to clear...
Well, each time I was able to restart the van and go home. Not a single towing. The van was working perfectly fine except during those events. I looked at many wires/connectors, CAN signals, I rebuild some grounds wires, I verified some wire jumpers in the CAN loop, but nothing was the cause.
Finally, after months, when I was stall on the side of the road with all the family in the middle of nowhere trying to restart the van, I remark something; The van finally restart after I had play with the ground wire near the ABS module... man! there is a Yaw sensor inside this ABS module and this one was stopping the van because it detect that it's upside down or something like that. In short, the Yaw sensor is there to stop the powertrain in case of crash/car upside down and it was near the position to detect this kind of event. I moved the ABS module and the Van restart without any failure since. After all those adventures I remember I had move the ABS module few months before.
Accident: There is cruise control coming with this powertrain and we use it a lot because it's so enjoyable. But the ABS/traction control doesn't work. After almost 4 winters without accident, my wife forget 1 time to stop the cruise control in a weather where rain was slowly transforming in snow and the rear of the van had slip on the highway. Everybody is fine and damages are low (front bumper and rear panels).
Battery back-up on 4 wheels: Our van (360Vdc battery) can now powered the house in 120/240Vac. I added an inverter and solar panels on our house. This inverter have a solar input of 120-450Vdc, so I build a small set up to disconnect the solar panels and connect the van in case we need more energy. It was specially useful last winter when we lost electricity during 5 days after a storm.

That it. The van rust well, umm I mean the van work well since 4 years now and we like it a lot. Sometime we are tired to drive a old van with all those specific characteristics: Wind noise, loose direction, rust everywhere, leaking window seal, doors not closing easily.
Yes, we look at all that and are tempted to buy the new VW ID buzz van, but each time we calculate how inexpensive is it to drive our old electric vanagon we think twice at the small annoyances.

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My 360 volts Vanabolt: https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=...highlight=

[Sodo]

What a great story, thanks for taking the time to update your fans!!
I think a LOT of people have been touched by this story.
And heartwarming that at times it resembles a Vanagon.

Rather than buying a ID Buzz, why not look for a nice Westy with a broken trans and dead engine? And move everything over?
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'90 Westy EJ25, 2Peloquins, 3knobs, pressure-oiled GT mainshaft, filtered, cooled gearbox
'87 Tintop w 47k 53k, '12 SmallCar EJ25, cooled filtered gearbox
....KTMs, GasGas, SPOT mtb

[yabert]

[yabert]

The next step for us: After the 200$ paint job 3 years ago, it's time for a better 2000$ paint job.
So not the perfect 10k$ restoration paint job, but a good one to give a bit more years of live to this useful EV.
We will change windows seals, rocker panel driver side and door seals. We will paint inside and outside a kind of duck blue.

What I would like to know is the advices and tips to repair the steel around the windows.
I plan to sand blast the rust.
-Which good value tool who will not remove all steel?
-What to apply after sand blast? Direct putty? Rust converter? Por 15?

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My 360 volts Vanabolt: https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=...highlight=

[MayorMcCheese]

GM gave you a replacement battery even though you tore the Bolt apart and transplanted it into a Vanagon? That is one hell of a recall.

[eugenev]

Great work on the conversion! I was at electrify Long Beach last weekend and saw many companies doing EV conversions to "retro" vehicles. Some going so far to offer complete engine & tranny set ups in EV. Volkswagen was there with a late 70's bus camper with a factory ev set up from their ID4 suv. Looked pretty sweet and gets me excited for the future of this stuff.
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1986 Savannah Beige tin top GL 2.1 manual... sold
1990 White Westfalia 1WD