Anybody converted a VW Rabbit, Jetta et al.... to electricity, yet?
I've seen a few about the internet that have been converted. Check out
http://www.mrsharkey.com/rabbit.htm for one example..
Typically you never hear much more about them after it's all done.. I suspect the range isn't as good as most hope for.. IMHO a Rabbit probably isn't the most ideal chassis for such a build.. For a small car they are still kinda heavy compared to say a Ford Festiva/Aspire or a Geo Metro..
Vince, do you remember someone here a while back that had posted links or was asking questions about a Rabbit diesel hybrid?
Yup that's the one of them.. There was another, and it's possible I saw it elsewhere.. They had modified the transaxle in such that 5th gear was electric drive.. Gears 1-4 were used for acceleration and passing, 5th (electric) was used for cruising while the diesel idled... The engine had an extra permanent magnet alternator to charge the batteries.. Back to the WWWasteland to see if I can find it..
Anyhow, back on topic, winter temps had been my biggest hold back to building an EV.. I procured the drive and controllers from an electric forklift a few years back with plans to drop it in a Metro.. My thought being that I'd rather putt that around versus starting and stopping the diesel all the time in the cold.. I spoke with another gentlman in the area that has a similar rig only to find that in the winter months (average temp around freezing) with our hilly terrain the range was 20 miles at best.. Seems like something like this would be best suited for say Florida..
Yeah, temperature's not in our favor...at least for current technology batteries:
We get -30C.
Vielen Dank! Thanks, folks, I'm looking forward to checking out the links
-warren
I was looking at the Voltswagen kit. If I read it right, it was a little over $10,000 dollars for the kit. I don't know about you guys, but that's a lot of money for me right now. Are there cheaper options out there?
you can buy lots and lots of diesel for 10 grand!