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since you remove the fuel tank, the gearbox and the engine there are nice chunks of space. Someone should start working on modular battery packs that could be a

since you remove the fuel tank, the gearbox and the engine there are nice chunks of space. Someone should start working on modular battery packs that could be assembled to fit current space.

Hamuko 7y ago
I don't think the fuel tank and gearbox in my car take up that much space when compared to the batteries in a Leaf or a Tesla. And you still need to put this where the engine used to go, so it's really a limited amount of space there as well. Just for reference, this is the fuel tank in my car: https://traversparts.com/download/normal/246883_1.jpeg https://traversparts.com/download/normal/246883_1.jpeg And this illustrates where the batteries in a Leaf are: https://s1.cdn.autoevolution.com/images/news/nissan-leaf-batteries-to-power-brazilian-homes-127747_1.jpg https://s1.cdn.autoevolution.com/images/news/nissan-leaf-bat...
- fortran77 7y ago
  The Leaf is more of a golf cart with a compact car shell around it. Range is only 60-miles or so. You should be able to get that with a gas-tank sized battery pack in any compact car.
  - stiGGG 7y ago
    That’s a 2nd gen leaf, it has a 40kWh battery and a range around 150 miles (240km).
  - schwabacher 7y ago
    The leaf has 150-226 miles of range depending on the battery option. Even the first generation nearly a decade ago had more than 60.
    - whamlastxmas 7y ago
      I've heard that cold weather combined with high speeds and a very degraded battery and running the heater can leave some of them with an effective range around 60 to 80 miles.
      - Kirby64 7y ago
        You don't even need to have high speeds or heater usage. 1st gen Leaf's have 60mi range pretty consistently just because of how small the battery was, and how degraded they are. In general the Leaf seems to be a bad buy, IMO, just because they do not have any liquid cooling. I don't know why they think they can get away with it... but literally every other EV manufacturer decided liquid cooling/heating is necessary for operating... but not Nissan.
- hwillis 7y ago
  A 15.5 gallon tank is 58.5 liters. A Tesla S/X module[1] is 15.84 liters for ~5.3 kWh. If you could cram every inch of space with batteries it would come to just under 20 kWh. Not that much, and it will degrade quicker because you'll deeply discharge it more often. That said, you can generally just line your trunk with batteries. You can jam 5 in the trunk of most cars while only losing ~3.5" of vertical space. Its a good idea to leave several inches for the crumple zone, but it's relatively safe if they are properly secured. The best thing to do would really be to raise the floor and get low-profile sliders for your seats, but that's a real hassle. [1]: https://www.evwest.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=463&osCsid=rp0cj2i33tp2j88tnj80dto4e5 https://www.evwest.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=...
  - Hamuko 7y ago
    I'm still a bit iffy on the safety when it comes to the trunk. As far as I've understood, Teslas and the like have pretty good protection between the battery and you in case something bad happens. But there's not really that much of a separation between the interior and the trunk, like there is with the engine compartment with its firewall.
    - kube-system 7y ago
      Hybrids have customarily placed their batteries at the forward-most part of the trunk for as long as they have existed. The packs are typically inside of metal housings and vented to the outside of the car. For those extra concerned about fire or poorly designed packs, it's not difficult to add a rear firewall on most vehicles -- this is standard practice required by most motorsport organizations when adding a fuel cell to the rear of vehicles. "firewall" is just a fancy word for a compartment blocked off with a piece of sheet metal.
tomatotomato37 7y ago
If you don't give a shit about the fire hazard you could just strip the individual cells from a planar pack and shove them anywhere they will fit. Properly protected packs are gonna be chunky though, which will necessitate more space than would be available in the old European compacts this motor seems to be designed for Though now since I think about it an unholy fire hazard would be in character for a vehicle invented before seat belts were a thing
h2odragon 7y ago
The thought of running wire between these chunks of battery to the motor, enough wire to carry that power, ... nope. Running 12ga and 10ga for stereos was hard work, running multiple spans of #00 for battery packs where the transmission and gas tank and whatever else used to be is not feasible. The insane fringe of hobbyists will do a few but most of them, even, will be using single, swappable commercial packs they cram in $somewhere.
- derefr 7y ago
  Rather than thicker-gauge wire, how about going all-in on the crazy hacks and running thin little high-voltage transmission lines through your car, heavily insulated—like, undersea cable ratio of insulation to core—with transformers on either end? I’d love someone to do an experiment where they set this up, then crash the car in a way that tears the cables up, and see how much everything arcs :P
  - TylerE 7y ago
    Batteries are DC. Transformers are AC. AC-DC converters are bulky.
- elihu 7y ago
  For some reason, commercial EVs tend to have batteries that run in the 300-400ish volts range, whereas conversions tend to be more in the range of about 100 to 200 volts. Lower voltage means more amps which means thicker wires [1], which are kind of heavy and expensive but it's not generally a huge problem as far as I know. [1] https://www.evwest.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=2_21&products_id=92 https://www.evwest.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=2_21&p...

since you remove the fuel tank, the gearbox and the engine there are nice chunks of space. Someone should start working on modular battery packs that could be assembled to fit current space.

Hamuko 7y ago

I don't think the fuel tank and gearbox in my car take up that much space when compared to the batteries in a Leaf or a Tesla. And you still need to put this where the engine used to go, so it's really a limited amount of space there as well. Just for reference, this is the fuel tank in my car: https://traversparts.com/download/normal/246883_1.jpeg https://traversparts.com/download/normal/246883_1.jpeg And this illustrates where the batteries in a Leaf are: https://s1.cdn.autoevolution.com/images/news/nissan-leaf-batteries-to-power-brazilian-homes-127747_1.jpg https://s1.cdn.autoevolution.com/images/news/nissan-leaf-bat...

fortran77 7y ago
The Leaf is more of a golf cart with a compact car shell around it. Range is only 60-miles or so. You should be able to get that with a gas-tank sized battery pack in any compact car.
- stiGGG 7y ago
  That’s a 2nd gen leaf, it has a 40kWh battery and a range around 150 miles (240km).
- schwabacher 7y ago
  The leaf has 150-226 miles of range depending on the battery option. Even the first generation nearly a decade ago had more than 60.
  - whamlastxmas 7y ago
    I've heard that cold weather combined with high speeds and a very degraded battery and running the heater can leave some of them with an effective range around 60 to 80 miles.
    - Kirby64 7y ago
      You don't even need to have high speeds or heater usage. 1st gen Leaf's have 60mi range pretty consistently just because of how small the battery was, and how degraded they are. In general the Leaf seems to be a bad buy, IMO, just because they do not have any liquid cooling. I don't know why they think they can get away with it... but literally every other EV manufacturer decided liquid cooling/heating is necessary for operating... but not Nissan.
hwillis 7y ago
A 15.5 gallon tank is 58.5 liters. A Tesla S/X module[1] is 15.84 liters for ~5.3 kWh. If you could cram every inch of space with batteries it would come to just under 20 kWh. Not that much, and it will degrade quicker because you'll deeply discharge it more often. That said, you can generally just line your trunk with batteries. You can jam 5 in the trunk of most cars while only losing ~3.5" of vertical space. Its a good idea to leave several inches for the crumple zone, but it's relatively safe if they are properly secured. The best thing to do would really be to raise the floor and get low-profile sliders for your seats, but that's a real hassle. [1]: https://www.evwest.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=463&osCsid=rp0cj2i33tp2j88tnj80dto4e5 https://www.evwest.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=...
- Hamuko 7y ago
  I'm still a bit iffy on the safety when it comes to the trunk. As far as I've understood, Teslas and the like have pretty good protection between the battery and you in case something bad happens. But there's not really that much of a separation between the interior and the trunk, like there is with the engine compartment with its firewall.
  - kube-system 7y ago
    Hybrids have customarily placed their batteries at the forward-most part of the trunk for as long as they have existed. The packs are typically inside of metal housings and vented to the outside of the car. For those extra concerned about fire or poorly designed packs, it's not difficult to add a rear firewall on most vehicles -- this is standard practice required by most motorsport organizations when adding a fuel cell to the rear of vehicles. "firewall" is just a fancy word for a compartment blocked off with a piece of sheet metal.

tomatotomato37 7y ago

If you don't give a shit about the fire hazard you could just strip the individual cells from a planar pack and shove them anywhere they will fit. Properly protected packs are gonna be chunky though, which will necessitate more space than would be available in the old European compacts this motor seems to be designed for Though now since I think about it an unholy fire hazard would be in character for a vehicle invented before seat belts were a thing

h2odragon 7y ago

The thought of running wire between these chunks of battery to the motor, enough wire to carry that power, ... nope. Running 12ga and 10ga for stereos was hard work, running multiple spans of #00 for battery packs where the transmission and gas tank and whatever else used to be is not feasible. The insane fringe of hobbyists will do a few but most of them, even, will be using single, swappable commercial packs they cram in $somewhere.

derefr 7y ago
Rather than thicker-gauge wire, how about going all-in on the crazy hacks and running thin little high-voltage transmission lines through your car, heavily insulated—like, undersea cable ratio of insulation to core—with transformers on either end? I’d love someone to do an experiment where they set this up, then crash the car in a way that tears the cables up, and see how much everything arcs :P
- TylerE 7y ago
  Batteries are DC. Transformers are AC. AC-DC converters are bulky.
elihu 7y ago
For some reason, commercial EVs tend to have batteries that run in the 300-400ish volts range, whereas conversions tend to be more in the range of about 100 to 200 volts. Lower voltage means more amps which means thicker wires [1], which are kind of heavy and expensive but it's not generally a huge problem as far as I know. [1] https://www.evwest.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=2_21&products_id=92 https://www.evwest.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=2_21&p...