Fiat 500 bolt-in electric conversion kit.

[Applause] hi everybody it's richard again here from electric classic cars and in today's video we're going to be talking about the iconic little fiat 500 or chingo chengdu it's one of the most popular conversions we do and today i've got a kit laid out on the floor here so we're going to give you a little bit of a tour of what our fiat 500 kit looks like right so i'm sitting i'm standing in a little fiat 500 at uh late 60s early 70s so this is a fiat 500l which i think stands for lusso and anybody wondering uh uh what gingka gentoo is because that's what it is in italian it's just 500 in italian and where does 500 come from well it's the little air cooled engine that's in the back it's 500cc so originally this is kind of a mini vw beetle really it's an air cooled engine a little tiny thing that sits in the back there only pushes out about 18 horsepower so it's not exactly fast um then you've got a gearbox down there or transaxle to be you know technically correct and then in the front there you've got your fuel tank and 12 volt battery so exactly is the same to the layout as a vw beetle but just squished to be a lot lot smaller and anybody that's a regular viewer out there knows me well you know i er on the side of wilde when it comes to my conversions that's not what this is so if you want wild go and see another video for five minutes because this is all about mild this is a conversion we do it's one of the most popular conversions we do but it um kind of simulates the similar performance of the original air cooled engine with a bit more oomph let's say to keep up with modern traffic and this is a city car so anybody expecting 300 mile range this is not it so on that note i think i'll get out the car and i'll walk you through the conversion kit that's on the floor in front of me now i've got everything laid out in front of me here now and it's kind of in the order it goes in the car um but it's a little bit stretched out let's say uh let's start with a battery pack because small car means small battery pack so what we've got here is one in the front and one in the back that one fits in the frontier it bolts into the original bumper mounts and petrol tank mounts and that is one tesla module then in the rear we've got two tesla modules so that's three test models uh modules in total giving you around about 15 kilowatt hours of battery pack which is small in electric car uh terms but don't forget this is really designed as a city car so you know 50 mile range 75 mile range driving in the city and that's all this will give you um but you know anybody that lives in a city in london place like that you know you'll know you probably don't even do 50 miles in a week if you're you know driving within the city but i've driven this in the city i hate driving in the city because i'm a country bumpkin redneck at the end of the day from wales and driving in the city is not for me but this in the city is hilarious it's so nippy and everybody like waves and even lets you out at junctions you know when's the last time you got let out in a junction in the city without pushing in front of people but you know back to the conversion so this is a 15 kilowatt hour battery pack which is plenty enough for a little city car range-wise um now three tesla battery batteries in series will give you around about 75 mah 75 volts which then brings me to the motor so the motor there is a little hpebs ac 20 motor 75 volt system it gives around about 48 horsepower now remember that's only 18 20 horsepower at best um so that's a lot more power than the original engine which is why we actually turned down a little bit but it's also still air cooled so the engine was air cooled the motor's air cooled so that ac20 bolts into the bumper mounts at the back and the only thing we're missing here is the adapter plate that goes on here and then that bolts onto the gearbox so that sits actually underneath these plates here so these plates here they go in the engine bay and again just bolt into the usual holes in the engine bay and the adapter plate kind of sticks its head through here a little bit but the reason why we need these plates is because we need to mount the battery box on here but also things like the charger and high voltage junction box and other bits and pieces so charge wise seven kilowatt charger um so that sits there and if you imagine that battery box there up and mounted and bolted onto here um that's where that lives and as i say you've got a high voltage junction box here where you've got things like your heater feed coming out of there your dc to dc feed coming out of there your charger coming out there and i think on that note it's probably time to go and have a look at it in the actual car now one thing i love about our conversion to the fiat 500 is the front because originally you have the fuel tank here so we've ended up with more luggage space now because we've got the battery pack down there with a spare wheel and a 12-volt battery used to go and because the fuel tank's gone number one your luggage doesn't stink of fuel when you get it out and number two look at all the space you have compared to when the original fuel tank was in so that's the front now around to the back now i'm in a little bit of strange position because i've got to crawl right underneath the car to show you but this is the motor in position you've got the motor cradle here which bolts up to the bumper mounts up there um and then you can actually see on this one the adapter plate obviously so the motor attaches to the adapter plate adapter plate to the gearbox and that means it's got a flywheel and clutch in there so you can still change gear now we get a lot of questions saying electric motors gears how does that work well the torque curve is a lot lot wider which means that you only end up using second or maybe third or second or fourth so you can start off in second gear quite slightly around town but certainly went up to higher speeds shifted into third or fourth and that's about it so up top now now with this shot you really get an idea of the challenges with this conversion it's a tight squeeze so in the back here and we've got the two tesla modules in this battery pack here and underneath buried down there we've got the charger we've got the motor controller of that inside and then we've got the high voltage junction box here and underneath all that is the motor so it's a really tight squeeze but it fits and we've probably done about 10 feet 500s now and we ship these kits out to companies around the world that convert uh fiat 500 as well and uh you know just to be clear we don't sell these to the public it's just the um companies that have trained up staff that are um you know qualified to work on high voltage um stuff although it's only 75 volts but it still can give you a fair all whack right i've moved into the little blue fiat now because i just love the interior in here it's got a white interior on the pastel blue uh color it's just a nice place to be but not only that look at the fiat 500 interior how simple and elegant it looks why can't all dashboards be this simple nowadays you just got a couple of switches here for things like you know windscreen wipers and stuff one dial there which tells you the information that you need like the speed and that's it so we've kept all that with ev conversion and what we've done we've put the state of charge gauge down there and the heater controls all down where the original heater controls and vent system used to be because it's an air cooled engine don't forget and we've got a little plate there that goes in that space and just bolts in so there you go that's the interior nice and simple just like me so there you go i hope you enjoyed this episode on the little fiat 500 and our electric conversion kit and i personally think this is the perfect little electric city car but i meant to know in the comments below what other little classics do you think would make a fantastic city car so there you go i hope you enjoyed this video and i'll see you on the next one [Music] you

Channel: Electric Classic Cars

Views: 214,301

Keywords: electric car, tesla, fiat, cinquecento, vintage voltage

Id: 4zl1WGqK8k4

Length: 8min 59sec (539 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 29 2022