It runs! Our dirt-cheap homemade electric Volkswagen runs!
At long last: For weeks I've been telling everyone I'll test drive it this weekend, only to be sidelined by one problem or another. I was starting to get discouraged when Mark Clifford, who is building that electric Porsche 911 I told you about, came by the house to check my progress. He helped me solve a problem with the accelerator cable and then amazingly enough the thing worked.
As I silently pulled away from my house under electric power, weeks of discouragement turned to excitement when it dawned on me – this rust-bucket '67 Beetle that I have assembled myself actually works!
I only made a run through the neighborhood to test everything, but it felt great. I felt like Dr. Emmett Brown in Back to the Future when he discovers his time machine works by sending his dog into the future.
I spent the better part of an hour touring the neighborhood and showing off to my neighbors. Lots of people were out enjoying a warm spring afternoon. The sight of a Bug rolling silently – instead of clattering loudly – down the street sans hood or engine cover was definitely an attention-getter. A group of kids and their parents playing Frisbee in the street parted to let me through, pointing and staring all the while.
"Nice job! You got it running!" one neighbor called out as I passed. It was followed by, "Sounds like you might have a problem. The engine isn't running." He thought the engine had died.
"It's electric," I said as I came to a stop. That led to several minutes of explanation as everyone looked things over. It was the same story on every block as I toured the neighborhood. The test drive renewed the sense of excitement I had when I started this project back in October. My determination to get this baby fully functional mounted as I experienced the car's surprisingly good performance.
I ran out of battery cable when I was wiring everything, so I had only 96 volts from eight 12-volt batteries instead of the 120 volts (10 batteries) I'll have when the car is finished. But even with the diminished power, the car had excellent acceleration. I didn't time it or anything, but my seat-of-the-pants feeling suggested it might be quicker than a gasoline-burning Beetle. It boogied quickly to 30 mph in second gear. I didn't push it any harder than that, but the car felt like it had more to give.
The ride was understandably rough, but nothing worse than expected considering it's a '67 Beetle hauling 500 pounds of batteries. It's clear that I'll need to either adjust the rear torsion springs or replace the shocks with coil-overs, but that can wait a bit longer. I was so excited to get going I forgot to check the odometer before taking off, so I don't know how far I went. I probably traveled two or three miles. The batteries had no noticeable charge depletion when I pulled the car back into the garage.
So what have I done since jury-rigging a repair to my rusty floorboards? Mostly I've been mounting the electrical components to the firewall, crimping lugs onto the huge 2/0 battery cable and wiring everything up.
I scored a great deal on a half-inch thick slab of surplus aircraft aluminum. I'll use it as a heatsink and mounting plate for my motor controller. I was going to drill the holes myself, but questioned my accuracy with a hand drill, so I called up Spencer Stromberg of the Electric Car Company of Utah. Regular readers will remember Spencer as the guy whose Herculean efforts got my motor mounted. He fired up his CNC machine and it took an hour or so to drill and countersink all the holes. He even threaded some of them. Whatta guy.
I used another eighth-inch thick piece of aluminum to mount my pot-box, which is basically the throttle, and then started running what seemed like a few hundred feet of wiring to hook everything up. I still need to do some fine-tuning with the pot-box and accelerator cable, but it's pretty good for a first try.
So my car runs. But it's not done. There's a long list of things to do. I've got to tidy up all that wiring and find permanent locations for a couple components. Both battery boxes still need to be permanently secured, and I need to re-wire the tail lights, which got toasted when the previous owner had a car fire. I also need to mount and wire my gauges. I just found a used battery charger for a great price from someone doing a conversion in Detroit. It should be shipped this weekend.
I also need to find a permanent solution to my rusty floorboards. I'm certainly more interested in function than form, but the rusty floor is more than a cosmetic problem. My temporary fix is just that: temporary. I got a ballpark quote for making the floors solid and it isn't cheap. If it was only the floors, it wouldn't be too bad. But I would have to replace the entire structure underneath where the doors close (the heater channels), and who knows where the rust would end once someone starts cutting. I will likely be able to find a different donor Bug in better shape for less money than the repair would cost. My electric drivetrain should easily swap into just about any Beetle if anyone out there's got one in decent shape ...
For now I'm focused on getting this one rolling. I'm learning a lot and it should hold together well enough to get me around for a while.
Wow ... it runs.
Got any advice, suggestions or ideas for Matthew? Leads on a decent Bug for cheap? Share ‘em with us! Follow his progress on Twitter @Wired_EV and here at Wired.com. He’s also got a blog, evBeetle.com, to cover the conversion in microscopic detail.
Photos and video: Matthew Redd/Wired.com. Be sure to check out all Matt’s previous posts here.
