Converion Parts

Before beginning the conversion I thought I would give you an idea of what it takes to convert a gas powered car to electric drive. Since the car will no longer be using gasoline to power it we need a different source of power. In this case the source is eighteen 8 volt flooded lead acid batteries. The battery voltage and quantity has been chosen to give a final output of 144 volts DC. Here are the batteries being stored while the conversion takes place.





The charger is connected to keep them at peak charge so no sulfation will take place. This battery charger is an intelligent one. It is programmed to provide the right charging curves for these batteries so that we can get maximum power and life span from them.




Now that we've seen the batteries let's take a look at the battery boxes. These will be where the batteries reside in the car. They are made of plastic with welded seams to resist and contain any acid spills. The box below will be installed in the former engine compartment and will hold 9 batteries.



This box will be installed in the front trunk and will hold 6 batteries. That small box on the front will hold the accessory battery which will provide the 12 volts DC that most of the standard systems need in the car.



And this is the rack that the box will sit on.



And this is the front trunk where this box will be installed.



This last box will mount in the former gas tank compartment and will hold 3 batteries.



And here is where this box will sit.



Now that we've seen how the energy will be stored let's take a look at how that energy will be used. Here's a picture of the motor.



This motor will replace the gasoline engine as the source of power to turn the wheels. It will use the adaptor below to mate to the existing transmission using the existing flywheel and clutch. It should provide a decent amount of torque to power the car.



And here is the existing transmission that I will use after fixing a few leaks.



One thing I haven't mentioned yet is how we drive a 3 phase AC motor from DC voltage. The controller accomplishes this trick.



The conltroller will be installed in the rear trunk.



It takes 144 volts DC in and produces a pulse width modulated 3 phase AC output. So it is sort of like 3 inverters linked together but it is actually much more complex than that. It takes a variable resistance controlled by the throttle cable and changes the width of the pulses to effectively vary the voltage output. This is similar to the way that a variable frequency drive works for controlling large motors. Both the motor and controller are made by Azure Dynamics which was formerly known as Solectria. They used to make the Solectria car. There are a few of these still around.

There are more parts to the conversion than this but these are the major components. Next up is to remove the ICE (Internal Combustion Engine) components.