Any EV conversions must be under taken by someone who knows what they are doing, do not start a conversion unless you know the risks!!!
You must have a strong understanding of high voltage circuits and wiring or natural selection may take place!!! 😁
The process:
1. Select a donor car, like an old VW Beetle manual and remove the engine, exhaust, fuel line and fuel tank. It tends to be more popular to use an older lighter cars as its easier to propel the vehicle and there is less to re-engineer like the more complicated electronics. Although larger cars can hold more batteries so its up to what you want really.
2. Attach the electric motor. There are many different motor's you can use check the motor's section for details, in this case to keep it relatively simple connect a Netgain Hyper 9 motor to the original manual gearbox with an off the shelf or custom adaptor to allow you to connect the gearbox to the motor, then you can use the original driveshafts and gearbox.
You won't need to change gears as often due to the power band and you can start off in third gear. The reason for this is there is no chance of the electric motor stalling and with the amount of torque (aka turning force) the electric motor has enough power to to start in that gear.
Be wary that depending on the power of the motor you may need to upgrade the driveshafts and gearbox.
The motor may well need further structural stability, depending on the stability of the gearbox, using fabricated mounts to hold in place due to the torque of the motor and to keep in position.
(Older home DIY conversions often use a DC Motor from a forklift and a DC controller to run it.)
3. Batteries are then fitted to power the motor. Older / cheaper conversions have lead batteries and more expensive most recent conversions have the lighter more efficient (Energy dense) Lithium battery packs. These packs are either bought new or from used / crashed EV's. The batteries are either air cooled like a Nissan Leaf or water cooled in some cases like a Tesla. Water cooled will need a sufficient radiator, pipework and pump to boot if you go that route.
The batteries must be fixed securely in an appropriate location taking into account the balance of the car as its the heaviest part of the conversion. Battery boxes, often using aluminium or steel, are needed to hold them in place securely, sealed to keep water tight and for crash safety.
Further fabrication may well be required to aid the cars structure or chassis for strength again as the weight of the batteries can compromise the cars structure. For example cars with glass fibre chassis like a TVR.
4. A Battery Management System or BMS is fitted to monitor the battery state; like the voltage, temperature, current and coolant flow if a cooled pack. The BMS also controls the charging and regeneration (Regen) of the battery. The regen is electricity generated from braking which goes back into the batteries.
5. To charge the battery an on board charger is most commonly used like a 3.3KW or 6.6KW air cooled versions that Zero EV stock. you can use more than one of each to make the most of space in a build. Recently some high end conversion shops have used higher KW chargers that are able to be charged with CCS charging, these replenish the battery pack much quicker, although the batteries might go hot and increase degradation. The CCS charging system tends to be the standard fast charging on most new cars coming out now.
6. A DC to DC converter to charge the 12V battery will be needed as part of the conversion. As you wouldn't want to have a flat 12v battery, not being able to start the car even if your battery pack is full.🙄
7. A controller is needed unless you have a Tesla drive unit which has one included that needs reprogramming with the likes of a custom mother board. The controller regulates the power from the battery to the motor to well.....control it. A drive by wire or similar sensor can be used for the original accelerator pedal to dictate the power or some builders use an appropriate electric pedal off cars like a Prius.
8. Other hardware may need fitting to power the air conditioning (AC), power assisted steering (PAS), vacum system for brakes and heating.
9. Now all the various components need wiring together very carefully. with visible bright orange shielded high voltage (HV) cable for all the HV power.
10. Lastly, you will need to then plug in a laptop to set up the controller and BMS. I've just realised I have no idea about this, so if anyone has a good link to share please do. Or message me separately.
I hope this gives Chargeheads a decent run down on the process and what's needed. I hope I haven't forgotten anything 😉