The HV cables from the battery to the motor controller/motor run out through grommets in the floor under the battery box, and along the chassis rail where the original fuel lines ran. The cables are double-insulated, then run inside plastic sheath for extra protection. I used the original fuel pump bracket as a protective plate where the cables exit the body.


Jumping around a bit - the original A/C evaporator and heater core were removed. We used 2 ceramic element heaters mounted on a steel plate, and inserted these into the original heater box. The heaters are controlled by optical relays using the original heater slide switch and micro-switches so we have low and high heat. The fan comes on low speed any time the heater is switched on to ensure it doesn't get too hot, which isn't likely because they don't put out a whole lot of heat. We learned early on that it's best to have the fan on low speed otherwise not much heat builds up. How could this be a Volvo LOL!



I'm retired and don't have anything better to do on a cold windy day...waiting for my new workshop to be built so I can get back to car projects LOL!

My partner Wayne working on some of the instrumentation wiring. He's an electrical/computer engineer, whereas I'm a mechanical engineer, so our skills are complementary when we're not trying to kill each other! ;)

Pic of the hall effect pedal assembly provided with the controller. Fortunately it bolted in place perfectly with just a couple extra holes drilled into the floor. Note there's no clutch...it's fairly easy to change gears when going up, but downshifting (usually not required) requires rev matching or waiting until you come to a stop. No issues with synchros yet so the M45 must be a pretty robust box...we've put over 27,000 km on the car in electric mode already.

Eye candy - Bilstein HD, ipd braided brake hoses and sway bar. :)

Pic of the small radiator and coolant pump for the controller


The corners of the battery box sit pretty much up against the back of the front seats, so I put some aluminium bash plates in to spread the load in the event of a rear-end collision...I wouldn't expect the battery box to move, but this is for when the occupants would get thrown rearward pushing the seats back towards the battery box.

The DC/DC converter is located in the glove box...which means no storage there now! :( If we had it to do over we'd have put it somewhere in the engine bay, as it has a fan on it so makes a bit of noise. The DC/DC converter is the equivalent of an alternator in a normal car, but instead of the engine running it, it take the 144 V of the battery pack and steps it down to 13.6 V and keeps the 12 V battery charged. The output current is variable so when you turn the headlights on or heater fan, the DC/DC outputs more current to the battery, just like a voltage regulator does in a normal car alternator.

I made my own splash pan from aluminium sheet. I also made a belly pan of same to run from the rear of the splash pan to a point behind the transmission crossmember. While I was bending metal, I made up a shroud for the radiator that sits behind the front air dam.



carnut222;114084 wroteMy partner Wayne working on some of the instrumentation wiring. He's an electrical/computer engineer, whereas I'm a mechanical engineer, so our skills are complementary when we're not trying to kill each other! ;)
This made me lol - I was thinking "this smells an awful lot like an engineer".
Two engineers makes even more sense. :)
Imagine two anal retentive perfectionist engineers working on a project together lol!
This is a tremendous piece of excellent engineering, flawlessly executed.

What is the rated power and torque of the motor?
Really impressive. Sorry if you mentioned it before but are you still using boosted brakes? Do you have an electric vacuum pump?
Update to the battery capacity - I had it incorrect in a previous post. We have 45 Sky Energy 130 amp-hour batteries, at 3.2 v nominal. The total pack capacity is 18.7 kWh.

The equivalent average fuel efficiency over the 27,xxx km we've driven the car is 2.68 litres/100 km...not bad for a 240! That's based on the energy put back in at re-charging (which we monitor and record every time we charge).
Rick122S;114095 wroteReally impressive. Sorry if you mentioned it before but are you still using boosted brakes? Do you have an electric vacuum pump?
Yes Rick - still using the standard brake booster. We're using the back-up electric vacuum pump from a "modern" Volvo, and have programmed it to switch on automatically once the vacuum level in the storage reservoir (from a 740T with auto climate control) drops below a pre-set limit. It switches off when a set vacuum level is reached. The pump is a Hella pump and you can see it in the picture here:

One of the more difficult challenges was designing a motor-to-transmission coupling. My first effort failed, rather catastrophically I'm afraid. Probably not due to design but poor machining of the shaft keyway. Because the key wasn't super tight in the keyway, the coupling worked its way off the motor shaft and once only half the key was in contact with the shaft the key sheared and damaged the motor shaft. Oops! I designed a new coupling that utilised a taper-lock hub in addition to the Woodruff key, and had the centre section of a clutch disk machined down to interface to the coupler. After a few teething issues with the clutch centre section, the latest design has been trouble-free.



bgpzfm142;114093 wroteThis is a tremendous piece of excellent engineering, flawlessly executed.

What is the rated power and torque of the motor?
Thanks for the compliment.

The motor output is more limited by the batteries and controller settings. We have a 1000 amp capable controller, and 144 V nominal battery voltage, so the theoretical max kW is around 144 kW. In practice the motor is only about 85-90% efficient, and we're only running at 700 A max to preserve the batteries. So our actual motor power output is around 85-90 kW. From the motor performance curves that are generated at 72 V, I can extrapolate and guesstimate the torque peak is around 270 N-m. The controller we're using is pretty sophisticated and designed for soft starts etc, so I think it blunts a bit of the "instantaneous torque" that people talk about from electric motors as it ramps up the current gently. It's definitely no ball of fire - probably very similar to the original car but a bit quicker off the line, and also most noticeably you don't really need to put your foot down to maintain speed when going up a hill - it just pulls up the hill with all the torque of the motor.
Since no airflow is required to go through the grille, I decided to make a perspex cover for it. Gives it a bit of a "WTF is that" look when people see it on the road! :) I did toy with whether to put the slash and Volvo emblem back on, but decided it looks pretty clean without it. I do have "drive" badges on front, rear and guards as a bit of a tip-off. Oh, and the number plate of course!

Well, in late 2014 I took an early retirement buy-out from Holden (where I worked as an engineer in Port Melbourne) and we moved from Williamstown to Daylesford. Of course, the EV didn't have the range to make it the 102 km distance, not to mention it being uphill most of the way LOL! I looked into whether I could stay overnight and charge halfway somewhere - like Baccus Marsh caravan park? Anyway, long story short club pres Heino offered to borrow a trailer with his V70 T6 and we drove the EV to Werribee and loaded it up for the drive up to Daylesford. (Thanks Heino and Dion!) I'm kinda shooting myself for not trying the drive, but we were in the middle of packing to move house and on a tight schedule so it probably was for the better to not push our luck at the time. The farthest we ever drove the car on a single charge was 76.6 km, and we still had 31.5% remaining state of charge. We never allow it to drop below about 25% SOC as it can reduce the life of the batteries.

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