Electricity 4 Gas – How to Find Your Ideal Electric Donor Car
I have been reading Peter Millward’s Electricity 4 Gas Manual again. It is surprising how much information that I missed the first time that I read it. In the first chapter of the e-book, Peter wrote about finding your donor car for the retrofitting process.
How do you know when you’ve found a great donor car?
I don’t think there is a fix rule. Peter mentioned that you must know what you want to do with the electric vehicle when you’ve done with the conversion work. Do you want the EV just to carry friends and family or do you need it to carry heavy good?
Based on the research that I did, for normal driving needs, an old VW Beetle would be suitable as an electric donor car. In the first chapter of Electricity 4 Gas manual, Peter suggested to look for a donor car with a manual transmission. It makes a lot of sense actually.
An automatic transmission would need constant torque from the engine to pump the transmission fluid. The fluid has to be pumped even the car is stationary. When an EV is not moving, the electric motor will stop spinning. Without torque, you can’t change gears!
For someone who is planning to start a Do It Yourself (DIY) electric car conversion project, getting an old VW Beetle as a donor car would be ideal. There is no complicated electronics to mess with. What we want is to get the retrofitting done as quickly and as cheaply as possible.