T3: Re: Plans for Fastback

[Schmitt@aerovironment.com (Schmitt, Frank)]

>This sounds interesting. I have seen on tv some one do this to Karman Ghia.
>I have some Q?
>
>Dose one still shift in an electric car.


In most homebuilt conversions, you still shift. Many people just leave it in
second all the time, as you can start from a stop (without using the
clutch!) and easily reach city-traffic speeds.

In air-cooled cars, your fan speed and your engine RPM are the same. In a
gearless EV (electric vehicle) going uphill, the fan speed is often too slow
and the motor can overheat. With a transmission, you can downshift and bring
up the RPM and the cooling (much like an air-cooled VW).

>How expencive is the convertion.

Depends. You might be able to get away with about $3000 for a pretty minimal
conversion. For something pretty slick (such as what I plan ;), it'll be
about $6000 (if you know where to shop). I'll definitely be spreading this
out over a few years. For $75k you can get a roadster with a 200HP AC drive
system that does 0-60 in under 5 seconds.

>How long dose it take to charge.

This also depends. Here at work we're building a 60kW charger, which should
return most of the juice to a battery pack in about 15 minutes. From a
standard outlet, the rule of thumb is overnight. This is if you completely
drain the battery.

>How involved is the convertion prosess.



The biggest job is figuring out where and how to mount the batteries. Second
is probably mounting the motor and adapting the clutch and transmission.
Then you have to mount the controller and some miscellaneous other parts.
Wiring it all up is time consuming but pretty easy if you're at least
minimally handy with electricity. You need to be careful, though, when
handling enough electricity to move a car 40 miles (same goes for gasoline).
Figure most of your weekends for about six months.

-Frank