VW Beetle converted to electric in a day

[Music] here we go last smoky journey of this little beetle it normally takes weeks to convert a classic car to electric here at electric classic cars we're gonna set ourselves a challenge can we convert this volkswagen beetle from petrol to electric in a day all right let's go guys [Music] it'll be interesting to find out if it can be done but we're all willing we're all ready to give it a go we're going to make it a flipper that flips up the rear number plate and have the charge socket underneath the number plate so what tony's cracking on with at the moment [Music] all right five minutes engine's going to come out guys so we're going to get on left pete yes can you get the air filter off yeah there we go all right go so we've got one on top at the start motor one at the side with the start there there's one up there as well take them out the engine is going to drop so what we'll have to do is pump up the pallet and then uh we'll get underneath it wouldn't have to be this side over the other side let's get it down and get the pallet truck up it's building a car in a day there could be problems [Music] i do know this the electricians will have a really busy day that's for sure it's always a crazy idea when i go hey guys i've got a really good idea [Music] one smoking pipe okay pete give it a pull this way go down a bit let's try it it's catching here again bring it your way a bit down keep going okay so if we grab onto the exhaust yeah and pull the exhaust yeah yeah well we've got it changing out once that petrol engine is out it's time to get the electric motor [Music] in hopefully we'll have it done by the end of today [Music] time to put the motor in she comes yeah yeah yeah good keep going it should be able to go in no no no no can you push up from the back here no terminals are now against the back of the body okay we're gonna have to take it back out for a minute we can't come in from the top it'll just be a similar problem first major problem the electric motor does not want to fit the clutch is fouling the bell housing so essentially as soon as the motor goes on the motor can't turn so we've got to try and figure out what's going on there the the front gearbox mount if we can take that off now you can't take it yeah no it's bolted straight though isn't it it bolts from the inside of the bell housing so they put a wrong year rear balance on which makes it really tight here so you can just undo them and drop the lock no it's not even on the main bolt there there's no way that this is clear here there's a bit of metal just underneath here we're just going to clearance it'll give us a little bit more movement it's only like millimeters we're talking about but it's so so tight here so we'll just give that a little bit of a tickle with a grinder and that should give us enough [Music] there you go need to pry that gearbox is that yeah that should go in there there you go yes yeah thank christ for that let's get a bolt in and there's tech clearance on the wheels etc the good news is the motor's in essentially it was an early gearbox that was in there that was fouling the clutch we've lost about two maybe even three hours on this i think it's still possible to get this done in the day but the pressure's really honest now to try and catch up it's now half past two we've got the battery box in at the front the motor in still loads to do it hasn't been a smooth conversion that's for sure it's going to be very tight do you mind the paintwork no no no you need to come in you need to go in like this hold your hand on the corner that's it you got it back down again yep cool that's fine needs all checking first before anything gets plugged in just in case i've decided to put it in the wrong thing should we do a final check before we plug anything in just for safety because if it goes wrong it goes wrong [Music] the charger it's just like a phone charger at home for your phone it's basically what charges the battery up on the car we are now getting the rear battery box mounts all drilled and should have that in in the next half an hour the rear battery box is a little bit more difficult than the front to get in because essentially we've got to feed it into the car one two three yeah and then feed it up onto the rear luggage area get your leg on the toilet yeah i'm gonna be i'm good mate i'm good and don't forget it's about 85-90 kilos of weight but oh i'm not gonna do it the big lads are coming in to do that can you see the whole canyon yeah oh there we go yeah well i'd like to wiggle that now yeah fine it's done eat your penguin the motor's in and the battery's in but everything's going to be connected up yet so there's a whole load of wiring we've got to do you ready for this mod oh am i ready for anything right yeah whatever grab that side then on the paint up top we've got to just get everything spot on and right because if you make one mistake with the wiring bad things can happen in a normal petrol car for instance you've got a 12 volt battery but with electric cars these batteries can give you up to 800 amps so you really got to treat them with respect so the pressure's on the electrical guys now to get this finished [Music] gonna be a little bit of a late one but we always knew that really when we started but in with a chance of finishing so the ignition's on yeah yeah you should be able to program that yeah just connecting now so we've got 122 volts in the system which is good so we're checking all the control systems the safety systems and then the last thing you do is turn the big isolator on here we should have 122 volts cool perfect okay we're all ready to uh basically do a switch on okay we've done all our safety checks so we should be okay but there's always a little bit of nervousness when you turn that key on for the first time ready when you are mark yeah turning this one on going on yeah so at the moment i'm trying to configure the motor so i've had to do a firmware update on the controller because it was there i had an old version in it back on hey i heard a contact yeah fall down all the way down all the way off okay can you just put your phone in the file again please for the throttle all the way down now yeah all the way up commission failed right additional offset we can just manually put it in can't we it's on the motor it's 120 degrees clockwise it's 165 counterclockwise it's 74. you're gonna try a commission sensor with it freshly connected yeah okay the mission fails just not even trying a bit of an 11 power drama we've upgraded the firmware in the controller we've programmed the controller the last thing we've got to do is commission the sensor in the motor and for some reason the controller doesn't want to do it stopping brake throttle brake throttle go to the maps we've done this 100 times before i need to give the supplier a ring in america it's really late here but luckily in the states it's mid-afternoon so i'm going to give him a quick call now and see what he thinks hey hunter it's richard may how's it going okay so back into throttle there so configure traction throttle yeah okay map is 1 300 millivolts and the first point on the curve is 1480 so it's a good way off oh hang on we've got we've got a green thumbs up now we've done that like three or four times so we've got we've got uh in that case then let me go to uh configure sensor [Music] [Applause] come on that's what we want to hear it's been a long day i think we've sorted out the controller now for some reason it's just magically started working i think we're ready to go all right i'm really excited a little bit tired but definitely excited to see if this thing rolls reverse [Music] [Applause] converted in a day it's 11 o'clock we've got a beetle converted in a day i'm very happy very tired but i'm gonna sleep tonight with a smile on my face [Music] even though we've electrified this beetle it still feels like a beetle i mean the only thing that's changed obviously is it's got more power it's easier to drive and there's no noise coming from the engine or smell of the exhaust which is no bad thing really driving this electric people as well is so easy compared to driving it when it's petrol so this car has 25 kilowatt hours of battery pack which is probably going to be good for around about 80 90 mile range probably more if you drive it really efficiently [Music] the motor in it is about 120 horsepower which is plenty compared to the original 40 horsepower engine that was in it it could definitely keep up with modern traffic without a question of an out it's also got regen so going down this hill now i'm putting energy back into the battery as well which gives it a little bit more range the handling of an electric beetle is much better as well because we've moved the weight distribution a little bit further forward which is no bad thing in the beetle because usually all the weight is in the back which makes the handling a little bit questionable but now on these twisty roads here in wales this is actually really nice and the handling is actually quite impressive the other benefits of having an electric classic is there's zero emissions going out that tail pipe and if you're with a electricity supplier like octopus energy which gets electricity from renewable supplies even when you charge it up that energy is coming from wind and solar and having octopus energy as an energy supply means that you can feel a little bit more comfortable about topping it up with that electricity at nighttime the winner of this beetle is actually going to be able to charge for free at home with optimus energy for a whole year i think that's awesome not only are you going to own a classic electric beat like this but you can actually drive it around for free for a whole year we've taken a classic car that's already been built a long time ago and its carbon footprint is already there and we've taken a tesla and recycled its batteries so putting those two together makes a perfectly green solution for uh repurposing the classic car i'm really enjoying driving this it just puts a smile on your face thanks to octopus energy we electric classic cars have been able to give this beautiful beetle a new lease of life

Channel: Electric Classic Cars

Views: 686,856

Keywords:

Id: ZVtOss1U7_s

Length: 13min 46sec (826 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 04 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/Headwest127]

Once the parts for this type of conversion come down in price, this will be the coolest thing that comes out of the EV market. These older cars require less power (10 or 12 circuits of electric) and have stand-alone systems (no power steering, no AC, no brake boost from the intake). So swapping in a power plant can be simpler (CAN be). Also, they are lighter, but definitely not better in a crash. My point is that this would be much harder to do with a more modern car because the systems are more complex. The 70s British cars like the MG or the Triumph, or the Italian Fiats and even the German Porsche from the same era would be great candidates. Despite the down votes u/kontrasticus is getting, I would also hate to see some of the high-value cars get torn up for any reason.

[u/[deleted]]

This guy makes some absolutely beautiful mods. This is what I’m after!! https://twitter.com/elecclassiccars/status/1309865283100835847

[u/LtEFScott]

Not only built in a day, but the video (and car) sponsor, Octopus Energy, gave it to one of their customers on Dec 30th, along with a year's free electricity to charge it.

[u/stunkcrunk]

i had one of these in the same color...