From Nissan ICE Pickup To BEV With Nissan Leaf Heart

June 11, 2024 by Maya Posch 9 Comments

Last year [Jimmy] got a request from a customer ([Dave]) to help convert a 1998 Nissan Frontier pickup into an electric drive vehicle, with a crashed 2019 Nissan Leaf providing the battery and electric motor for the conversion. He has documented the months-long journey with plenty of photos, as well as a series of videos over at the [EVSwap Conversions] YouTube channel. While the idea sounds easy enough, there’s a lot more to it than swapping out the ICE with an electric motor and sticking some batteries to the bottom of the car somewhere with double-sided tape. The pickup truck got effectively stripped down and gutted, before the 110 kW (150 HP) motor got installed using an adapter plate.

The donor Leaf’s battery pack came in at a decently sized 40 kWh, which should give the converted Nissan Frontier BEV a range of easily 100 miles. This pack was split up into two packs, which got put into a custom aluminium battery box, each mounted on one side of the driveshaft. The charging port got installed on the front of the car, next to the logo, discreetly behind a panel. The front of the car had much of the openings that were needed for the ICE’s radiator sealed up for reduced air friction, along with the new low-friction tires that got installed. Although this converted car still has a radiator, it only needs to assisting cooling the motor stack (including inverter and charger) when driving slowly or charging, making it far less demanding and thus allows for a more sleek front.

As a bonus, the car still has the manual 5-gear shift, just without a clutch, and the pickup bed can now also tilt, albeit with hydraulics (so far). Considering that it started with a decent 1998 pickup and totaled Nissan Leaf, this is among the cleanest conversions we have seen, not to mention a good use of a crashed BEV.

Thanks to [JohnU] for the tip.

Continue reading “From Nissan ICE Pickup To BEV With Nissan Leaf Heart” →

A black PCB with a cellular modem board piggy backed on top. It has a micro-USB and DB-type connector on the end facing the camera.

Open Vehicle Monitoring System Is The Window To Your EV’s Soul

January 25, 2024 by Navarre Bartz 14 Comments

Electric cars have more widgets than ever, but manufacturers would rather you don’t have direct access to them. The Open Vehicle Monitoring System intends to change that for the user. [via Transport Evolved]

As car manufacturers hoover up user data and require subscriptions for basic features, it can be a frustrating time to make such a big purchase. Begun in 2011, OVMS now interfaces with over a dozen different EVs and gives you access to (or helps you reverse engineer) all the data you could want from your vehicle. Depending on the vehicle, any number of functions can be accessed including remote climate start or cell-level battery statistics.

The hardware connects to your car’s OBDII port and uses an ESP32 microcontroller connected to a SIMCOM SIM7600G modem (including GPS) to provide support for 3 CAN buses as well as Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connections. This can be particularly useful for remote access to data for vehicles that can no longer phone home via their originally included cellular modems as older networks shut down.

Do you wish EVs weren’t so complicated? Read our Minimal Motoring Manifesto.

Can A $3200 Kit Convert Your Car To Electric Power?

October 15, 2023 by Jenny List 114 Comments

Whether hardcore petrolheads like it or not, we appear to be living through the final years of the internal combustion engine. In many countries there are legislative timetables in place for their eventual phasing out, and even those which remain in production are subject to ever more stringent emissions legislation. If there’s a problem with the EVs with which we’re expected to replace our fossil fuel vehicles it’s the cost, those things are still very expensive. An Aussie student has an interesting idea that’s won the James Dyson Prize: a low cost conversion for existing vehicles that bolts onto their rear wheel hubs.

Electric conversion of fossil fuel cars is nothing new, indeed we’ve brought you news of units designed to replace the original engine and transmission. Neither are wheel hub motors new, but the difference with this system is that it doesn’t require significant mechanical modification to the vehicle. It retains the old engine, and this motor sits inside each rear wheel.

It almost seems too good to be true, but a closer reading shows the rotor bolted on one side to the old wheel hub and on the other side to the wheel. The stator meanwhile is bolted to the existing brake caliper mountings. This would lead to a slightly wider track and a greater unsprung weight, but we can see that it would work. Besides the motor there’s a battery pack for the spare wheel well and a set of electrically-powered systems to supply the brake servo vacuum and other services. The idea is that this whole kit could be fitted for 5000 Australian dollars, which is somewhere south of $3200 USD. It’s not perfect and it still involves hauling around the dead weight of an unused engine, but we can see it might still have a niche. If, and that’s a big if, it ever makes it to market, that is.

A black race car with white text of sponsors moves across an asphalt surface. There is a blue wall and a green, grassy field in the background. The car has white and red stripes as well.

Students Set EV Acceleration World Record

September 14, 2023 by Navarre Bartz 29 Comments

Humans have a need for speed, and students from the Academic Motorsports Club Zurich (AMZ) have set a new acceleration record for an electric vehicle with a 0 to 100 km/h (0 to 62 mph) time of 0.956 seconds.

The mythen features four custom electric hub motors with a total output of 240 kW and a vehicle weight of 140 kg (309 lb) thanks to the use of carbon fiber and aluminum honeycomb. The car was able to get up to speed over only 12.3 m (40 ft)! As with many student design team projects, every component was hand built and designed to optimize the power to weight ratio of the vehicle.

The students from ETH Zurich and Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts were excited to regain the record from the team at the University of Stuttgart, having previously held the title in 2014 and 2016. We suspect that they will find any European EV maker’s engineering department excited for the chance to hire them come graduation.

If you want to go fast at a smaller scale, checkout 3D printing RC car wheels for speed, and if you’d rather ride the rails at an accelerated rate, here’s an article on high speed rail.

Continue reading “Students Set EV Acceleration World Record” →

A DeLorean sitting on patchy snow next to a driveway. It's angled away from the viewer to the left showing off the open engine compartment with bright orange high voltage lines coming out of a square metallic charger box.

A DeLorean With An Electrifying Secret

August 16, 2023 by Navarre Bartz 47 Comments

There are few production cars with as much geek cred as the DMC DeLorean. If you want to kick the nerdiness up a notch without doing a full Back to the Future prop-mod, then the next best thing is to make it an EV.

[Bill Carlson] took a 1981 DeLorean and transplanted the drivetrain from a Chevy Bolt to electrify this ride. With the DeLorean being a rear wheel drive vehicle and the Bolt front wheel, there was some amount of component reshuffling to do. The motor is now in the rear of the car along with the main contactor, charger, and motor controller while the batteries are split between a pack in the original engine compartment and another up front under the hood.

The electric power steering and brake booster from the Bolt now also live under the hood, and the accelerator and steering column from the EV were transplanted into the cockpit. [Carlson] still needs to tidy up the interior of the car which is currently a nest of low voltage cables as well as add the cooling system which will bring this stainless monster up to a hefty 3200 lbs (~1450 kg) versus the original 2850 lbs (~1300 kg). We suspect the total bill came in a bit lower than getting an electric DeLorean Alpha5.

This isn’t the first electric DeLorean we’ve covered here, and if that isn’t cool enough, how about this DeLorean-inspired hovercraft?

Continue reading “A DeLorean With An Electrifying Secret” →

Ask Hackaday: Why Don’t Automakers Make Their Own EV Batteries?

December 1, 2021 by Lewin Day 88 Comments

Sales of electric vehicles continue to climb, topping three million cars worldwide last year. All these electric cars need batteries, of course, which means demand for rechargeable cells is through the roof.

All those cells have to come from somewhere, of course, and many are surprised to learn that automakers don’t manufacture EV batteries themselves. Instead, they’re typically sourced from outside suppliers. Today, you get to Ask Hackaday: why aren’t EV batteries manufactured by the automakers themselves? Continue reading “Ask Hackaday: Why Don’t Automakers Make Their Own EV Batteries?” →

Hong Kong Hacker Builds Electric Vehicle From Waste

Recycled Parts Round Out Soap Shaped Electric Car

November 30, 2021 by Ryan Flowers 13 Comments

[Handy Geng] has a knack for fitting his creations with a large percentage of recycled material. And as is exemplified by the video below the break, he also loves to mix the practical with the whimsical.

Using parts salvaged from motor scooters, trash heaps, and likely many other sources, [Handy] has put together a small vehicle that he himself describes as looking like a bar of soap as it slips across the floor. You’ll agree when you see the independent front and rear steering at work, allowing the car’s front and rear to be driven and steered on their own. Crabbing sideways, driving diagonally, and we’re guessing spinning in place are possible.

What’s also clear in the video below is that [Handy] is a talented fabricator. While not taking himself too seriously (keep an eye out for the 360° selfie cam!) he clearly takes pride in the work. [Handy]’s workshop and skill set show that at the core, he’s quite serious about his craft. We appreciate the creative use of scrap materials used in such an inspiring build. The turn signals and “communicator” hand is absolutely marvelous.

If building with recycled materials is your thing, then you’ll love the Trash Printer, too. Thanks to [Fosselius] for the tip!

Continue reading “Recycled Parts Round Out Soap Shaped Electric Car” →