A2 conversion to Electric!

[dangie]

Hello,

I am playing with the idea to buy a used A2 with no engine/or high mileage and convert it to an electric vehicle.
Since weight is a significant factor when you aim to get max mileage/charge the A2 seems to be a very interesting alternative as a so called donor car.

Questions:
1. Does anyone know if this has already been done?
2. Is it possible to get some drawings somewhere on the A2's internal structure and measurements: Engine bay, gasoline-tank, transmission, flywheel size etc...? I need this to be able to figure out what kind of electrical engine would fit and how I can integrate the batteries and controller.

I am by the way aiming to keep the cooling system to be used for cooling the battery pack and the engine/controller.

It would be fun to get some input or ideas from you people...!
Here is an inspirational conversion made of a Toyota Yaris 2007: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSZrpTb2_4I

 

[MPG Lover]

Hi dangie, as you suggest the light weight (aluminium construction) of the A2 makes it more suitable for an electric conversion than a normal car. However I would suggest the physical layout of the A2 might make a conversion difficult - the engine bay is not huge and unless you lose the boot there is no internal storage space for batteries etc.

Unless four seats are important to you, I would suggest the Honda Insight is a better donor vehicle as it already has a (hybrid) vented battery compartment, a high voltage cable run, a larger conventional engine bay and weighs the same (with batteries) as the A2 (@ 850kg). See my signature. I believe there have been a couple of conversions in America. Check out the Insight website - www.insightcentral.net

You can pick up a (relatively) cheap Japanese import version for about £4,000(ish). I know a deal could be struck at Goldseal Garage who have three and haven't sold one for months... HTH

 

[Gaff]

wet blanket

Hi,

I've also dreamed of owning an electric car and nearly purchased one, before realising that this is not the solution.

Electric vehicles:
- are not ecological: they simply move the pollution to the electricity generating plant. I once read a study of mass produced electric vehicles that concluded their pollution is equivalent to a fossil fuelled car consuming 8l/100km, about 40 mpg, so quite a lot really compared to a diesel A2.
- are not reliable: current mass produced electric vehicles (berlingo; 106) have a terrible reliability record because the batteries don't like cold weather and they need regular maintenance. Batteries are improving I hear, they are starting to use the same technology as the ones in laptops.... mmm, my laptop battery broke down long before my car battery.
- don't like hills.
- have a range that would prevent you from going further than the high-street for your summer holiday.

The green solution would be to have a 100% electric car and charge the batteries using a photovoltaique array. BUT the solar cell surface needed to provide the energy would require an investment far greater than is reasonable today. Consider the loss of earning from an equivalent sum of money invested safely.

Please also consider your own safety. If you throw 150 kg of batteries in the back of an A2, then suddenly the car will no longer have the 4* crash test ability that Audi designed it with.

I think that any A2 (or other fuel efficient small car like a yaris or C1) is the best solution today. Use it as little as possible and keep it until cars as we know them have evolved. Audi had good ideas a few years ago and another petrol crisis could bring them back:
http://greatchange.org/footnotes-1-liter-car.html
If Audi don't lead then Loremo or "China" may be the next major supplier of European cars:
http://evolution.loremo.com/

GA

 

[zeze]

Hum not that making an electrical A2 is a good idea but you got something wrong there... an electric car the engine puts out 80% of the supplied energy while the diesel gasoline only go as far as 20 something% nowdays probably a litle bit more but not even 40% that's for sure... the article you read was probably meaning if the energy camed completly from a fossil fuel powerplant (witch it doesn't) that energy convertes to normal voltage (220v) converted again to low voltage(12v) and charging battery(remember every single process has losses even energy transportation), battery energy loss, this way you will end up using more energy then an diesel A2.
Another thing is that you would charge your car at night where all the produced energy is made from renovable energy sources (that's why it's cheaper otherwise that energy is going to wast)

I don't know if you know this but audi released a full electrical H2 powered A2 and with a 6L hydrogen tank (witch had the size of the trunk thanks to the 7leyers of indisctructable material that the tank is made of) was able to do more than 130miles per tank that's 3l/100km with 148hp. http://www.carkeys.co.uk/news/2004_december/08/5286.asp

also some brand had a car named volt that had 2 engines one electrical and a gasoline engine that was basicly a power generator the volt was able to do 2L at 100km gasoline no diesel powered A2 can do this. the volt engine was able to do this because on a generator you can get a much higher energy eficiency(always the same RPM and same force,so you can make the engine always consume the minimal amount of energy).

So you see if an electrical engine consumed 8l/100km it would be impossible for the volt to be a fully functional car.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16503845/

The full idea of the volt is to make a car that is able to use nowdays gas and use the advantage of electrical engines (doesn't mater if your going up or down if you are at 1000rpm or 10000rpm the engine is always energy eficient at least a lot more than gasoline or diesel)

The problem is if you make a diesel or gás car to be able to climb hils and mountains your car will consume too much when going straight or going down the hills.
If you make a really energy eficient car and you are trying to go up the mountain it simply won't go no mater what gear you're in.

 

[Guest 4123]

The only advantage of an electric car is that the fuel is not taxed but if we all drove one it would be! A coal fired power plants extracts about 30% of the energy from coal as electricity. 20% more is lost in transmission, charging a battery loses another 20% and an electric motor is about 90% efficient. There is also the matter of having to carry around heavy batteries. This gives an overall efficiency of less then 20% compared with an Audi 1.2Tdi engine which is about 45% efficient, although there will be losses for the latter in refining the diesel.

Off-peak electricity is only cheaper because you have to run nuclear power plants at constant load. In France this is used for space heating - Gaff will confirm I think. I am not sure what they do with it in summer though! Air conditioning maybe! Less renewable energy will tend to be generated at night, not more, as there is no sun!

Hydrogen is no answer either because you need electricity or fossil fuels to make it! It is also very difficult to store at low pressure. At high pressure it is potentially very dangerous.

According to Mr Piech the VW 1L will appear in 2009!

RAB