Electric powered Mini. Is this the future?

[MattG]

Originally Posted by Oz

I couldn't help thinking more about those K series adapter plates .. MGF frames front and rear, 2 Metro CVT boxes and two e-motors = 4wd electric twini-Mini - only problem is where would you put the cells ?

in a trailer

[filski]

Has anyone mention of potentially doing a semi electric ie hybrid like one of them little Toyota yaris things, or even Toyota prius, looking at prius battery cell pack its actually would sit nicely underneath the rear seat. with little motor upfront.

[Oz]

Originally Posted by MattG

in a trailer

or on a roof rack

[jsouroufis]

Or use a Mini Pick-Up!

[Oz]

For a laugh I looked up the price of Lithium cells, you could spend £10K on them easily for a decent range and voltage for decent performance

[Oz]

Also found for the adapter plates you have two options, one that uses a clutch and flywheel so you can have 5 Speeds like a normal box and one that is effectively a direct drive conversion so it looks like you choose a gear and then lock the box in that gear. I presume for reverse you reverse the polarity to the motor in that case ?!?

[Artstu]

Originally Posted by Oz

For a laugh I looked up the price of Lithium cells, you could spend £10K on them easily for a decent range and voltage for decent performance

I wondered when someone would spot the price of the batteries. I've done 10,000 miles on an e-bike and know just how expensive the batteries are for those.
Perhaps electric conversions will have to wait until Nissan Leaf's become available as say a damaged car.

[Oz]

Originally Posted by Artstu

I wondered when someone would spot the price of the batteries. I've done 10,000 miles on an e-bike and know just how expensive the batteries are for those.
Perhaps electric conversions will have to wait until Nissan Leaf's become available as say a damaged car.

I knew they were expensive but not quite by how much ! - the ones I saw on that website are 3.2v cells so you have to multiply them up and wire them in series to get your desired voltage and the higher the Amp Hour the higher the price per cell goes. For a 120v you need 38 cells and with the sort of capacity you need for a decent range and speed you're looking at £300-£400 per cell = 38 x £400 =£15,200

[Artstu]

Yes when I looked I thought that's going to be expensive, I didn't ponder on the maths as I wasn't sure what voltage they run the motors at.

I bought three Nissan Micra's for about the same price as my e-bike battery! granted the Nissan's were scrap.

[AGoaty]

There is no mention in the original post about price. We all know the batteries are the expensive part. I also agree that £10,000 is very expensive.

The thing is something like a Nissan Leaf has the potential to be able to fit into a Mini, but really most people doing this would want the performance offered from some of the better models, for example the Tesla S. This has a 0-60 of around 4 seconds. Impressive for a big car!

With market values of Mini going up all the time, I can see more of these conversions coming as technology improves.

[twincamtone]

Electric power is all well and good, but I just couldn't deal with the silence.

If they could make it sound like this then great

[ardonfast]

a corishman that makes sence lol,

[twincamtone]

Originally Posted by ardonfast

a corishman that makes sence lol,

[ardonfast]

gogle TOM OGEL or similar, this is the reson battery car stuff is not and will never be on our job sheet,

[Oz]

I'm finding this subject more interesting the more I look at it.

It's probably more relevant to me as I live on a small Island that's about 9 miles by 5 miles with a 40mph speed limit so high speed performance and long range isn't actually a great "need".

Also the set up is so much simpler than a ICE, it's just a motor, no need for a cooling system (well not strictly true but not a necessity), exhaust pipe, ECU, sensors etc etc.

To make it easier for DIY applications there are a growing number of adapter plates for various gearboxes so you can simply remove the existing ICE and bolt the Electric motor to the plate and the plate to the gearbox using an adapter to take the standard clutch and flywheel. From a few DIY electric car forums I've read they seem to just select one gear (usually 4th) and the electric motor (which produces max torque from 0 rpm) just pulls it off the line, no need for gear changes but it gives you a cheap way to get the power from the motor to the wheels without having to use special gearboxes and drive shafts etc. I guess if you wanted a traffic light GP with someone you could select say third (any lower and you'd probably just spin the wheels with the instant torque) for a better start and shift back up to 4th when you're done.

Last weekend I was following a Nissan Leaf in my slightly breathed on JCW MINI Countryman and every time we left a speed restriction and he accelerated back up to the limit he left me for dead as I was waiting for the turbo to spool up and give me a speed boost (yes I could have dropped down two gears and it would have then eaten him for lunch but its the effortless and rapid acceleration an electric motor gives that I find really quite interesting).

Let's just say I did come across a Honda B series gearbox conversion plate in my interweb travels ...