VW Beetle converted to electric in a day

Here we go, the last smoky journey of this little

beetle

. It usually takes weeks to convert a classic car to

electric

. Here at Electric Classic Cars we are going to set ourselves a challenge. Can we convert this Volkswagen Beetle from gas to

electric

in one day? Okay, Come on guys, it will be interesting to know if it can be done, but we are all willing, we are all ready to try it, let's make it a fin that lifts the rear license plate and has the charging socket under the license plate, so, What is Tony doing right now?

Okay, five minutes, the engine is going to come out, guys, so we're going to go left, Pete, yeah, can you take the air filter out? Yes, there we go, let's go. so we've got one on top of the starter motor, one next to the starter, there's another one up there and take them out the motor is going to go down so what we're going to have to do is inflate the paddle and then uh we'll get under it , it wouldn't have to be this side over the other side, let's lower it and raise the pallet truck.

He is building a car in a day. There could be problems. I know. Electricians will have a big problem. Busy day, that's for sure, always a crazy idea when I go Hey guys, I have a really good idea a smoking pipe, okay Pete, give it a tug like this, go down a little, let's try it, it's hooking up here again , bring it your way. a little bit down it goes on fine so if we grab the exhaust yeah and pull the exhaust yeah yeah well we'll swap it out once the gas engine is off it's time to install the electric motor hopefully it will we will have it ready for the At the end of today it is time to start the engine.

She's coming, yes, yes, well, go on, she should be able to come in. No, no, no, you can push up from behind. There are no terminals here now against the back of the body. Alright. We'll have to take it out again for a minute. We can't enter from above. It will be a similar problem. The first major problem. The electric motor does not want to fit. The clutch is fouling the bellhousing so essentially as soon as the engine starts the engine can't turn over so we have to try and figure out what's going on there, the front gearbox bracket, if we can remove it now, no can you remove it, yes, no, it's screwed straight, yes though.

It screws in from the inside of the bell so they put a wrong year rear balance on it which makes it very tight here so you can undo them and loosen the lock, no it's not even on the main bolt there's no way this is clear here there's a little bit of metal right underneath here we're just going to leave some room, it's going to give us a little bit more movement, we're just talking about millimeters, but it's really tight here, so we're just going to give it that. a little tickle with a grinder and that should give us enough, there you go, you need to pry that gearbox, yes, that should go there, there you go, yes, thank Christ for that, let's put a bolt in and there's technical clearance . the wheels, etc.

The good news is that the engine is running. Basically it was one of the first gearboxes that was binding the clutch. We lost about two or even three hours on this. I think it's still possible to do it in the day, but the pressure is really honest now to try to catch it, it's half past two, we've got the battery box at the front, the motor is still charged to do it, it hasn't been a smooth conversion, that will surely be very tight. Do you care about painting? No, no, you have to go in, you have to go in like this, keep your hand in the corner, that's it, you put it down again, yeah, great, okay, you have to check everything first before you plug anything in, just in case.

I've decided to put it in the wrong place in case we do a final check before plugging anything in just to be safe, because if it goes wrong, it goes wrong. The charger is like a home phone charger for your phone, it's basically what charges it. With the battery in the car, we are now drilling all the rear battery box mounts and should have that done in the next half hour. The rear battery box is a little bit harder to get into than the front because we essentially have to get it into the car one two three yeah and then get it into the rear luggage area put your leg on the toilet yeah I'll do it I'm good Dude, I'm fine and don't forget they're around 85-90 kilos in weight, but oh, I'm not going to do it, the big boys are coming to do it.

Can you see the entire canyon? Yeah, there we go, yeah, well, I'd like to move it now. Yeah, okay, that's it, eat your penguin. The engine is on and the battery is in, but everything is going to be connected still, so there is a lot of wiring that we have to prepare you for this mod, oh, am I ready for anything? Yeah, whatever, take that side and then lift up the paint. Upstairs we have to have everything in order because if you make a mistake with the wiring bad things can happen in a normal gasoline car, for example you have a 12 volt battery, but with electric cars these batteries can give you up to 800 amps, so you really have to treat them with respect, so the pressure is on the electricians now to finish this, it will be a little late, but we always knew when we started, but we have a chance to finish. so the ignition is on yeah yeah you should be able to program it yeah just plugging in now so we have 122 volts in the system which is good so we're checking all the control systems the security systems and then The last thing you do is turn on the big isolator here, we should have a cold 122 volts, perfect, okay, we're all ready to basically flip a switch, okay, we've done all our safety checks so we should be fine, but always there's a little nervousness when you first turn that key on ready when you're dialed yeah turn this one on go ahead yeah right now I'm trying to set up the engine so I had to do a firmware update on the controller because it was over there.

It had an old version on it. Hey, I heard a contact, yeah, falling all the way down, all the way off, can you put your phone back on the file? Please press the accelerator down now, yes, up. The commission failed, right, additional compensation, we can just place it manually. No? It's in the engine. It's 120 degrees clockwise, it's 165 counterclockwise, it's 74. You're going to try a start sensor with it just connected. Yeah, okay, the mission fails, but not even. trying some power drama 11, we have updated the firmware on the controller, we have programmed the controller, the last thing we need to do is run the sensor on the motor and for some reason the controller doesn't want to do it. do it by stopping brake accelerator brake accelerator go to the maps we have done this 100 times before I have to call the supplier in the United States it is very late here, but luckily in the United States it is mid-afternoon so I'm going to give him a quick call now and see what you think hey Hunter, I'm Richard May, how's it going?

He accelerates again there, so set the traction throttle. Yeah, okay, the map is 1,300 millivolts and the first point on the curve is 1,480, so it's very far away. Wait, we've got the green thumb now we've done it like three or four times, so we have, in that case, so let me go configure the sensor, come on, that's what we want to hear it's been a long day. I think we have fixed the driver now, for some reason it magically started working. I think we're ready to go. I'm very excited, a little tired, but definitely excited. look if this thing backs up turned into a day it's 11 o'clock we have a

beetle

turned into a day I'm very happy very tired but I'm going to sleep tonight with a smile on my face even though we've This electrified beetle is still feels like a beetle, I mean the only thing that's changed obviously is that it has more power, it's easier to drive and there's no noise coming from the engine or smell from the exhaust, which isn't a bad thing at all, really driving this electric people like Well, it's very easy compared to driving it when it's gas, so this car has 25 kilowatt hours of battery, which will probably be good for a range of about 80 to 90 miles, probably more if you drive it really efficiently, the engine it carries is about 120 horsepower, which is enough compared to the original 40 horsepower engine it had, it could definitely keep up with modern traffic without a doubt, it also has regeneration, so by going down this hill now I'm also putting power back into the battery. which gives it a little more range, the handling of an electric beetle is also much better because we have moved the weight distribution a little further forward, which is not a bad thing on the beetle because usually all the weight is on the back. rear which makes the handling a bit questionable but now on these twisty roads here in Wales this is really nice and the handling is quite impressive.

The other benefits of owning an electric classic is that there are no emissions coming out of the tailpipe and if you are with an electricity provider like Octopus Energy, which gets electricity from renewable sources, even when you charge it, that energy comes from wind power and solar, and having Octopus Energy as your power supply means you can feel a little more comfortable charging it with that electricity at night, the winner of this beetle will be able to charge it free at home with optimus energy for a whole year. I think it's amazing, not only are you going to have a classic electric vehicle like this, but you'll also be able to drive it. free for a whole year, we take a classic car that was already built a long time ago and its carbon footprint is already there, we take a tesla and we recycle its batteries, so putting those two together makes a perfectly green vehicle.

Solution to reuse the classic car. I really enjoy driving it. It just makes you smile thanks to the energy of the octopus. We electric classic cars have been able to give this beautiful beetle a new life.