Now that we live out in the country, we're a bit limited with respect to where we can go, but the car serves us well for the trips to and from the shops in Daylesford. The farthest we've ventured from home is to Motobean Cafe in Malmsbury, where fellow club member George let us charge at his workshop while we enjoyed the club Christmas lunch. Shout out to George and Lachy at Motobean - great food and coffee! :)



When we had to pull the motor apart due to the coupling failure (shaft had to be machined), I took the opportunity to add a blower fan with filter. I made a shroud out of aluminium sheet and mounted the blower and a K&N-type pod filter. The blower is a relatively cheap 12 V boat bilge blower, but it's still quiet and has lasted for over 5 years. In the first pic you can see how awesomely large the brushes are on the EV motor!!


Unboxing the batteries was a big day! :) We bought them through a company in Perth who import them from China.
A bit of bling never hurts...painted the chassis braces and strut brace orange to match the HV wiring.

Note about the strut tower brace - it's an "Ultra Racing" brand and didn't fit real well. Also, it's obviously got a big bend in it to clear some petrol car components. With the EV I could have made a straight one out of one piece of tubing with flattened ends probably...but it was cheap and I had it! :)

Also got some clear tail-lamps.




awesome build, very inspiring.

How much has retrofit EV tech changed since your build?
sucksqueezebangblow;114130 wroteawesome build, very inspiring.

How much has retrofit EV tech changed since your build?
Glad you found it inspiring. Thanks for the compliment.

There's probably better availability of AC motors and controllers now, so it may be cost effective because if the gains in efficiency due to regenerative braking with the AC systems...batteries like ours haven't come down in price unfortunately. Some people are using batteries from wrecked Teslas now but that would be a rarity due to the small number available and probably high cost to implement...but would be awesome to have a 60 kWh or larger pack!!
Very interesting build!

Maybe I'm missing something but I'm not understanding how the gearbox setup works.
Firstly - I thought that electric cars could get away without gearboxes? (ie the power is more 'linear' I suppose?)
Regardless of that - why a manual box over auto, and how does the clutchless system work with it?

Other question - is it your daily driver and if so, does it tick all the boxes that a daily needs to?
If not - are there issues with battery charge levels/longevity if, say, you let the car sit for a few weeks between driving it?
240;114149 wroteVery interesting build!

Maybe I'm missing something but I'm not understanding how the gearbox setup works.
Firstly - I thought that electric cars could get away without gearboxes? (ie the power is more 'linear' I suppose?)
Regardless of that - why a manual box over auto, and how does the clutchless system work with it?

Other question - is it your daily driver and if so, does it tick all the boxes that a daily needs to?
If not - are there issues with battery charge levels/longevity if, say, you let the car sit for a few weeks between driving it?
Auto box is horrid because tq has tons of loss
Cvt could work but again can have some significant loss and is hard to implement

Manual allows them better power to get up to speed and then 4th in a m45 is locked input and output and is near enough 95%+ efficient

Transmissions exist becuase petrol engines use more fuel and wear out faster at 6000rpm over 2000rpm

Electric motors dont care much if they are running at 6k all day (brushes will wear out a little faster)

Batteries are also more efficient the lower the amp loads are on them
This is why batteries have different storage ratings for 100hour/10hour/1hour discharge
The m45 lets them easily stay lower in the amp range for a longer time while bringing the car up to speed
As compared to a direct drive

@carnut222
Have you gone back and redone the rear axle bearings and diff and pinion?
There are some nice bearing updates available that reduce the rolling resistance a little bit for not much cost

240;114149 wroteVery interesting build!

Maybe I'm missing something but I'm not understanding how the gearbox setup works.
Firstly - I thought that electric cars could get away without gearboxes? (ie the power is more 'linear' I suppose?)
Regardless of that - why a manual box over auto, and how does the clutchless system work with it?

Other question - is it your daily driver and if so, does it tick all the boxes that a daily needs to?
If not - are there issues with battery charge levels/longevity if, say, you let the car sit for a few weeks between driving it?
Thanks. Glad you found it interesting. As @Philia_Bear said autos are pretty wasteful with the torque converter. Since the motor doesn't idle when you come to a stop, the only real need for a clutch is when you change gear. Also, if you have an auto you need to have constant hydraulic pressure which is maintained while the petrol engine is idling. With an EV you either need to then retain the torque converter and set it up so the electric motor runs at idle, wasting electricity, or you have to have an external hydraulic pump that saps power. Hence why most home conversions use a manual, with or without a clutch.

We always start out in 2nd gear and can stay there unless we are going to be driving at 80 kph or above. If that's the case, you just take your foot off the accelerator and gently slide the gear lever from 2nd into 3rd. The electric motor speed drops very slowly unlike a petrol engine, so the motor speed pretty much matches the gearbox speed if you time it right and the gear lever just slips into 3rd with no grinding or anything. With our big DC motor, the rev limit is about 6500 rpm, which suits the manual box ratios fine. Some AC motors run at a lot higher rpm but obviously the gearbox wouldn't like those high revs. You can go without a gearbox but the motor would draw a lot more current from a stop, and the acceleration would be very sluggish with our setup. For example if you start off in 3rd gear instead of 2nd, you definitely feel how it blunts the performance and you can see via the instrumentation that it's using a lot more battery power.

I did use it as a daily driver when I was still living and working in Melbourne. In my 11 km commute over the Westgate bridge I never changed gears out of 2nd as the traffic usually crawled along at 60 or less! I could also drive to the airport or for example down to Moorabbin for our Volvo meetings, so it was fine in that respect. Of course double the range would have meant we could have driven to places farther away, but I typically charged every other night at home so we could pretty much drive 60-70 km each day if need be. The battery tech we're using have a very low self-discharge rate. We went away for about 6 weeks and found that it lost about 5% charge in that time.

Keep the questions coming!
Amazing build and you beat Volvo to it :lol:

Would love to hear and see how it runs.

Any plans to charge it off another battery pack, say one that had been charged by solar? If that's an option.
JocrisBeva;114182 wroteAmazing build and you beat Volvo to it :lol:

Would love to hear and see how it runs.

Any plans to charge it off another battery pack, say one that had been charged by solar? If that's an option.
Thanks Jake. Happy to give you a ride if you're down this way! :)

We have a 3 kW solar system on our house here and currently even with charging the car (which we typically do when the sun is shining!) we've generated way more power than we've used (almost double in fact). We have an electric hot water system and all electric appliances including 2 split system heat/AC systems (though they are Daikin US7 super-efficient ones). We've been thinking about whether it's worth it to go off grid, but at the moment it doesn't make sense since the weather down here is pretty crap during the winter. The grid provides a nice buffer this time of year. We'd need a decent size battery pack plus probably another 2 kW of solar. If we do ever decide to retire the EV, we could use the pack from it which would be amazing and probably sufficient.
@Philia_Bear I didn't know about the options for upgraded bearings to improve rolling resistance...interesting! However, it probably would make more sense to go back to some 15-inch alloy wheels with LRR tyres...having the 17s with fat tyres means a lot more weight and rolling resistance I suppose! I wonder what the gains would be with more efficient bearings? Interestingly I did replace the RH front wheel bearing as it seemed to be getting hot and sometimes spitting out grease. That was after I replaced the caliper thinking it was a sticky caliper causing the heat. Well, no difference - new bearing also seems to get hot and smells hot, although it hasn't been throwing out grease. Maybe the stub axle is damaged? Hmm...seems to roll OK with no noise though.
yeah I was also wondering why you didn't go with a direct drive setup – from the limited reading I've done this seems to be the preferred "performance" setup?

When the cost to convert comes down I think we are going to see a real surge of interesting older cars with electric performance. It'll be brilliant.

Amazing job anyway. Must feel so rewarding.
carnut222;114186 wrote Thanks Jake. Happy to give you a ride if you're down this way! :)
Im in Brissy but hopefully ill be able to make it down that way for one of the meets and take you up on the offer.

That's awesome, so your pretty much running it for free aswell.
pastry;114205 wroteyeah I was also wondering why you didn't go with a direct drive setup – from the limited reading I've done this seems to be the preferred "performance" setup?

When the cost to convert comes down I think we are going to see a real surge of interesting older cars with electric performance. It'll be brilliant.

Amazing job anyway. Must feel so rewarding.
Thanks Pastry. Yes, that first silent drive was quite rewarding!!

With respect to direct drive vs having a transmission, it all boils down to the motor, controller and batteries being used. Even cars like the Tesla have a gearbox...granted it is only 1 reduction ratio. Direct drive to the wheels with no reduction ratio puts a huge strain on the motor and batteries when starting off as the current draw is huge. For a drag strip car it may be OK, but not practical for a normal car that's coping with start-stop traffic, hills etc.

I look forward to the time when EV conversion kits become readily available for old classic cars...there are already some companies doing it so it's just a matter of time.
Yeah I was definitely inspired by that Ferrari a while back. Not that I could afford a Ferrari to begin with. But I can see some more everyday classics receiving a new lease of life. An electric Saab 900 would be my goal, but it'd have to be quick..

I mentioned direct drive because I read through a build which I'm sure is very familiar to you, the RX8 by some guy whose name I forget. Recall him espousing the benefits of direct drive – presumably this is entirely down to drivetrain loss, but OK, I see your reasoning in a day-to-day car.

If gearing makes sense on a bicycle I suppose it also stands to reason it's the smart choice for something as heavy as a car!
True direct drive is problematic. Electric motors make a lot of torque from zero, but pull a lot of amps to do so.
Most hub motors etc are of fairly low power and run lots of phases. The Hubmonster bike motor is around 30kW and runs 6 phases and pulls a lot of amps for the power it gives.

Electric motors have a much wider power band than petrol, so multiple gears are not as needed.
Motor design has a big part to play.
Traditional induction motors and DC motors are somewhat rev limited, the Warp 9 used in this car as above is around 6500rpm tops.
Permanent magnet AC can run a LOT faster.
Nissan Leaf motor tops out around 10,000rpm, and a Tesla motor does almost 20,000.
If you can run those sort of revs then your fixed single gearing can be set low enough that take off torque is not as high and one gear does all.
The i MiEV was a little slow on take off but by 10-15kmh it was pulling hard and from there would keep up with most 2 litre petrol cars until beyond 80kmh. Not bad for a tiny 47kW Eco car...
Leaf will keep up with most V6s off the line from its 80kW motor and will pull 160 top end.
The lower the top speed you will accept the better take off you will achieve. Running an electric motor faster doesn't make them use much more power.

The electric Ferrari uses three AC motors driven into a Porsche 911 transaxle...it uses the gears to give it awesome acceleration or smoked tyres on command.
The motors he used have a top speed of 10,000rpm but a max continuous speed of 5500. You would need to gear such a car to be doing 5500 at 110kmh to get the best from it, and your top end on short runs would be around 200.

Autos are rarely used because in stock form they suck power big time.
There is a company modifying Powerglides for EV use and calling them the EVGlide.
They ditch the torque converter and hook the motor up to the drive directly. The pump is driven off the input shaft instead of the TC.
The fluid use is minimised by ditching the automatic side of things and fitting a manual valve body, either manually shifted or shifted by a solenoid and electronic controller.
Fluid pressure at start up and idle is provided by a small pump and an accumulator. Because the fluid flow in the trans is reduced dramatically the lump runs a short burst on start up, then when the car moves the main trans pump takes over. In stop start traffic the accumulator keeps line pressure up for quite a while but if it drops too low the electric pump brings it up again.
EV West had such a setup along with twin Warp 9 motors in an E36 M3 with which they won the classic section of Pikes Peak outright and set an EV record, since blitzed by big $$$ factory entries.
Also the 222 Green Zombie Mustang uses this setup. YouTube it. You'll enjoy it I promise...

I've dreamed of converting a 240 for a very long time....and having been in, around, and under 240s for many years I have thought long and hard about how I'd do it!
There have been a few done, but not that many. Most have used a DC motor and manual gearbox.
One nice one has been done in the Netherlands, also to a '93 wagon, using an 80kW AC motor and M45 with a 40kWh pack. He has also managed to get it to work with ChaDeMo rapid charging which is common in Holland.

My budget recipe begins with a used Leaf motor (around $1kUS from wreckers in America) which is rated at a nice safe 80kW continuous, but have successfully been driven to 200kW peak for shout bursts. I'd probably leave 80kW as the default but maybe have 120 available for 30 seconds on a kick down switch...

I would go single speed ("direct drive" but not truly direct drive, just a single reduction ratio) and push the motor back into the trans tunnel freeing up engine bay room. Jeep rock crawler guys can give us ring and pinion for Dana 30 down to almost 7:1....that's enough reduction to give it better than stock take off and still top 150kmh. Pick the right year Leaf motor and the inverter unbolted easily from the motor instead of being in one bulky piece with it, allowing you to push it into the tunnel somewhat.

EV West in Cali are now selling used Tesla S modules, 5kWh per module at $US1300 each. Each module is around 600x900x80mm and 25kg. They are water cooled. Judging from Greg and Wayne's real world experience a sensibly driven electric 240 runs around 180Wh/km. That ties in with my rough estimate of 200Wh/km.
Using the conservative figures, 4 modules would get you 100km. Also going by Greg and Wayne's experience with actual weight removed, and remembering we are not using a transmission here, ten modules and a Leaf motor would be a comparable weight to what they have achieved. That's 250km range if you push the cells or 200 giving them an easy life.
Knowing how well 240 wagons handle a load I'd be tempted to add 50 kg and go for 12 modules for a 300km range and allow me to cycle the cells more shallowly.
Most of these would fit in the engine bay but I'd also put a pack where the fuel tank was to keep weigh balance better and leave some engine bay room, also to leave some crash space front and rear.

For heating I'd use a late 240 AC system with a Leaf high voltage AC pump, and a mob in WA sell the parts to make a car AC into a reverse cycle heat pump. The first car they did it on was a 940....
Using the auto shifter to switch the controller would keep the driving experience natural for those not used to modified cars. The lower gear positions could be for different regen levels with D giving a coast for greatest energy efficiency on flatter terrain. I would hook the regen up to a pressure switch in the brakes also.


If I had an open cheque book, there is a lovely AC motor made in the US that can give 350kW+ although it is $US20k and needs a $US10k controller....but that running a 9" with 4.11:1 gears would be a monster....
@carnut1100 more great and well informed comments!! Thanks for that. Those used Tesla packs sound great! I wonder how difficult they are to integrate with a BMS etc?

I should have quoted our average economy over the 27,xxx km driven is about 210 W-h/km on use (charge efficiency is about 80%, so on charge it works out to about 260 W-h/km). I forgot to point to our link on the EV album...where you can have a look at hundreds of EVs from all over the world including the dozen or so Volvos listed.
http://evalbum.com/2356
I've been fascinated by EVs since I read an article in Popular Mechanics as a kid about the IMPACT concept car that morphed into the EV1...since then I've read almost anything I can find about them, and when I had a chance to buy a 2010 i MiEV ex demo with 400km on it I jumped on it.
Used it as a rural daily driver for 2 years and 40,000km before selling it (for $500 more than I paid for it, having saved $10k in fuel over that time!) as I was using a Hilux for work and the poor thing wasn't being driven any more. We could use the money more than a car that was now doing 20 km a week...but I miss it!
I'm only not running an EV now because I can't find one that can tow a trailer, carry a 6m ladder and a bunch of tools and satellite dishes, and do 200km+ per day unless I spend $250k on a Model X...
I must confess that I've got slightly refined plans drawn up to convert the Discovery to a twin motor AWD electric if the opportunity ever arises.....
carnut1100;114253 wroteI've been fascinated by EVs since I read an article in Popular Mechanics as a kid about the IMPACT concept car that morphed into the EV1...since then I've read almost anything I can find about them, and when I had a chance to buy a 2010 i MiEV ex demo with 400km on it I jumped on it.
Used it as a rural daily driver for 2 years and 40,000km before selling it (for $500 more than I paid for it, having saved $10k in fuel over that time!) as I was using a Hilux for work and the poor thing wasn't being driven any more. We could use the money more than a car that was now doing 20 km a week...but I miss it!
I'm only not running an EV now because I can't find one that can tow a trailer, carry a 6m ladder and a bunch of tools and satellite dishes, and do 200km+ per day unless I spend $250k on a Model X...
I must confess that I've got slightly refined plans drawn up to convert the Discovery to a twin motor AWD electric if the opportunity ever arises.....
The Discovery twin motor project could be a winner! Before I came to Australia to work for Holden, I worked for GM at the tech centre in Warren, MI. I had the opportunity to drive an EV1 overnight. That was inspiring! There were a couple of them that escaped being crushed and ended up over here...I saw them when I worked at GMH. Wonder where they are now??? Imagine how far ahead of the game GM would be now if they had kept that alive and kept refining the tech from back then?
© 2013-2025 Oz Volvo. All rights reserved. | Forum Rules | Privacy Policy