Eric Tischer's VW Passat EV Conversion

4096 miles without gas since 4/18/2009

Update

2010-02-15 Lithium upgrade complete! I put my first 300 LiFeYPO4 miles on the car this week.

Got the car officially weighed, it is 3700 lbs.

Update

I added up 85 invoices, and my total cost in the car is 27,431.36

Big ticket items were:
$1,800 The car itself, 2001 Passat
$1,638 Ford/Siemens motor
$1,450 Painting the roof and new front bumper
$12,334 Thundersky Cells, 99 100Ah
$1,163 Inverter brains
$2,450 Battery charger

Update

2009-12-31
After 3.5 months of waiting, my lithium cells finally arrived. I added a "Battery Upgrade" link to the left window frame.

Update

2009-07-31
After 41 days of waiting I finally got my carpool stickers!!

It's hard to tell, but I also installed my custom wound rear springs. These springs are designed to support an additional 500lbs, and my car sits perfectly level now.

Update

Offical weight of my Passat (including driver) is 4200 lbs

Non-official dyno reading of 83.5hp (running daily driver mode, 95% power)

2009-07-14
Results from this test were within 1% of the average. The average was made up of 10 runs 0-60 in both directions. There are other torque/current profiles I have created which produce higher hp numbers, but 95% current limit has proven reliable, and that is likely what will be used for production. This is horsepower measured at the wheel, which includes drivetrain losses.

EV Parking only

2009-06-01

Solyndra installs six Electric Vehicle Parking stations

Top speed

2009-05-31

New speed record, 98.6 MPH!

The car was still accelerating, it will easily break 100 MPH on flat ground now.

Update

2009-04-28

There is an article about my car in Wired magazine.

2009-02-15 First drive around the block.

Video of the week. (6mB)

I got some major bugs worked out of my AC motor controller. The motor is now super smooth and quiet, and my IGBTs aren't overheating anymore! I was even able to take the car around the block. I still have much more work to do (power brakes, power steering, cooling system) but I couldn't resist. I was driving around with a 5 gallon home depot bucket on the roof, this was my cooling system for my IGBT.

2008-07-31 I got my motor to turn!
Video of the week. (4mB)

Then two seconds later, KABOOM! I talked with the IGBT tech support team, the problem appears too much inductance between my dc bus and the IGBT. They recommend using flat plates of copper bus bar instead of wire.