Freelander 1 Freelander EV

rob_bell said:

Here’s to looking forward to improved, smaller, lighter more energy-dense batteries!!

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I think we're at about the limit of battery density, at least with current known technologies.

There are different technologies being developed all the time, but NMC is currently the highest energy dense battery technology currently available.

I'm sure more will come.
I'm waiting for a battery the size of my FL2 starter battery, but be able to power the FL2 for a couple of hundred miles.
I'm in for a long wait I think.

Nodge68 said:

If you could choose any battery configuration you liked, it would be pretty easy to fit 35kW in a Freelander.
The you could for instance fill the space between the floor pan and bottom of the chassis rails with cells, which although limited in height, cover a considerable amount of area. Using Tesla modules for instance, you could get several under the floor, without compromising ground clearance much.
With a former ICE, it's more difficult to get in large batteries in, as you're stuck with whatever form factor battery the donor vehicle provided.

I'm sure you'll get them in, you just need to be creative.

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You're Right John, With slimmer modules there would be loads of room. Tesla modules would be perfect under the car but would have been twice the price and require significant fabrication to protect them. Leaf Modules would have been easier to manage in terms of connections and fitting in a box but I didn't want a 24kWh pack and 40kWh packs would have been twice the price so we have to work with what we've got. Even with 6 large modules in the front and 4 large plus 2 small in the fuel tank area I'll probably end up covering the boot floor and putting a false floor over them. I haven't finally decided on the goldfish bowl delete yet, I'll probably put that off to Ver 2.0
But I'm not complaining about the batteries I've got as they are great quality.

Lithium sulphur likely next (and perhaps sodium sulphur) but these will be some years before seeing commercial application… I really don’t think that batteries have fully matured yet.

Alibro said:

With slimmer modules there would be loads of room. Tesla modules would be perfect under the car but would have been twice the price and require significant fabrication to protect them.

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Tesla modules are very popular, so prices remain high. Tesla cars also hold there money well, which means all the parts from them command high prices.

Alibro said:

I haven't finally decided on the goldfish bowl delete yet, I'll probably put that off to Ver 2.0

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I thought you'd already done away with that Ali.
For me, that would have been the first thing to go. I never really understood the idea behind it anyway, especially as there's enough space under the bonnet for the jack, which of course is where it was on the pre-2001 MY update.
I know it makes a nice out the way place for emergency kit, but if the boot is full, having to empty it to access the stuff in there is just a pain. You could fit more modules underneath, of the fish tank wasn't there.

Nodge68 said:

I thought you'd already done away with that Ali.
For me, that would have been the first thing to go. I never really understood the idea behind it anyway, especially as there's enough space under the bonnet for the jack, which of course is where it was on the pre-2001 MY update.
I know it makes a nice out the way place for emergency kit, but if the boot is full, having to empty it to access the stuff in there is just a pain. You could fit more modules underneath, of the fish tank wasn't there.

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It's already gone in my test mule car and TBH after what I saw this evening I might need to use it. I'm just concerned the MOT folk might consider it a major change and force me to get a full test.

If I don't use the Fishbowl but put six large modules under the bonnet and 4 large + 2 small in the fuel tank space this will be my boot.


If I do use the fishbowl/exhaust back box area this will be my boot.


So either way I lose part of the boot so is it worth all the extra work to reduce number of modules in the boot area? Plus the modules will be further forward if in the boot so better weight distribution and safer location.
But in the meantime I think I've more or less finalised the layout under the bonnet. It should look something like this.



The power steering pump will be on the driver side on the bracket you can see, I hope to put the old Leaf battery which is quite small on the right and the batteries will be covered but this looks like being the layout. What you can't see under the inverter is the Outlander PHEV AC charger and DC to DC converter. It is there but not connected and still to be tested. The white box is for high voltage connections and there is space under it for the ebike controller and battery I plan to use to drive the PS pump.

This evening I decided to push on with testing which means connecting up the battery so this is what the back of the car looks like atm.


This is the entire pack minus the six large modules that go in the engine bay since they are easy to mount in position for testing. As mentioned 4 large and 2 small modules should go in the fuel tank space but getting that in place with the modules properly installed and connected is a major job I've been putting off for months. I still need to decide on how to connect both low and high Voltage to this box, how to seal it and how to mount it so that will have to wait. And as I said earlier I might be able to get 6 large and two small modules under the boot in the fish tank/exhaust back box area but I haven't even looked at that seriously yet.

I spent an hour or so cutting and drilling bits of 35mm2 copper buss bar from the eGolf pack to use as connections between modules. These look like they will be simple enough to fabricate albeit a bit time consuming and I have half of them made so far. I will be able to use a few of the eGolf connections but not many.

And yes I did need to remove the boot door card to get it closed.

Alibro said:

I'm just concerned the MOT folk might consider it a major change and force me to get a full test

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Unlikely, it's just a spot welded in panel, of no structural significance.
I would guess that 99 out off 100 MOT testers wouldn't even notice it was missing.
They'll be more concerned that the battery boxes are secure, and the HV cables are safe.

Nodge68 said:

Unlikely, it's just a spot welded in panel, of no structural significance.
I would guess that 99 out off 100 MOT testers wouldn't even notice it was missing.
They'll be more concerned that the battery boxes are secure, and the HV cables are safe.

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LOL, I was think the same myself so maybe being over cautious.

Unless the tester owned an FL1, chances are they wouldn’t even know it existed!

Here is the latest video.


The footage was taken over a couple of months and some was lost so it's a bit disjointed but hopefully still interesting. As always on this build there were steps forward and steps back but getting the BMS working was a big thrill for me. It allows me to move forward knowing I can monitor all the cells.

I've watched it Ali. It was a good job that your power resistors were weaker than the reverse flow blocking diodes in the inverter unit.

Nodge68 said:

I've watched it Ali. It was a good job that your power resistors were weaker than the reverse flow blocking diodes in the inverter unit.

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LOL, You're right of course but in the end it won't matter. I didn't have the inverter plugged in at the time so it was safe and have decided to use the Outlander PHEV charger/dc-dc converter so the parts that were in danger will not be used.
The Leaf PDU and Charger would have taken up more than twice the space that the Outlander Charger takes up so in the end it is a no brainer.

Alibro said:

LOL, You're right of course but in the end it won't matter. I didn't have the inverter plugged in at the time so it was safe and have decided to use the Outlander PHEV charger/dc-dc converter so the parts that were in danger will not be used.
The Leaf PDU and Charger would have taken up more than twice the space that the Outlander Charger takes up so in the end it is a no brainer.

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I look forward to the next instalment Ali, with the other parts you'll be using instead.

I've been trying to work out how I should connect all the HV stuff together and have realised something that I hadn't previously thought about.
In all the videos and threads I've read about EV conversions everybody seems to be mounting batteries in the rear or under their cars but nobody mentions how they are connected and in many cases it looks like they just connect the leads and bring them to the front of the car. Some may put a fuse in the battery box but that still leaves cables which are always live running the length of the car.
That is something I'm not comfortable with so with this in mind I plan to put a contactor in the rear battery box so the cables coming from it will only be live when the car is turned on. It will add complexity but will hopefully keep everyone safe.
Helpfully VW put four contactors in each battery box so I now have 8 to play with.

Just one more thing to slow me down a little bit more.

Today was very exciting but ultimately a little frustrating. I've been working on the HV junction box and after changing my mind about 10 times I decided to go with the layout below.



I'm using the contactors, fuse, pre-charge resistor, pre-charge relay and a cut down portion of the plastic frame from the eGolf battery junction box.
The two cables coming in from the bottom of the photo are the HV cables from the battery pack.
The Battery pack Pos goes to the fuse, then through the fuse to the top contactor. The Neg goes straight to the contactor.
The two modules below are timer relay modules that trigger the relay and contactors after pre set delays. These are cheap ebay modules so I wouldn't be confident they are reliable so I'll probably come up with something different for the final build but they will do for testing. The timing is as below.
1. Ignition on sends 12V to the neg contactor and the two modules.
2. The pre-charge resistor is on the NC of the second timer relay so it comes on immediately sending pack voltage to the inverter via a 30R resistor.
3. After a couple of seconds the first timer relay triggers sending 12V to the main Pos contactor.
4. A few seconds later the second timer relay triggers disconnecting the pre-charge relay and sending an enable signal to the Damien Maguire VCU.
These timers are very cheap and probably not very reliable so I don't think I'll be using them going forward but for testing they are fine.

So I spent the morning securing the contactors etc then dug out the VCU and hooked it together then connected the battery pack together and held my breath while turning on the system.
No smoke, no bang, just leds flashing as expected. Phew!

Then after rigging up a manual 12V disconnect (power lead through the window that I can yank out if necessary) I gently pushed the accelerator pedal and....
Almost nothing. The 1500W ebike controller was more powerful.
After some initial confusion I think it is because the last time I used the VCU it was during bench testing when I probably had the max current cranked all the way back to prevent over speed. Unfortunately I had no time to make any changes due to family commitments so the first proper test drive will have to wait until tomorrow.
Wish me luck.

Alibro said:

Wish me luck.

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Good luck Ali. I'm excited to see it powered by the proper electronics, rather than an ebike controller.

Nodge68 said:

Good luck Ali. I'm excited to see it powered by the proper electronics, rather than an ebike controller.

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LOL, me too.

I watched Top Gear tonight and they had an item on about "future fuels". They had some EV converted classics on including an old Porsche 911 and a Defender. They were rapid! Any thoughts on the expected performance level of your FL1 @Alibro?

kernowsvenski said:

They were rapid! Any thoughts on the expected performance level of your

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Very good. Better than V6 power.
Don't ask how I know, but there'll be a video on YT at some point.

Nodge68 said:

Very good. Better than V6 power.
Don't ask how I know, but there'll be a video on YT at some point.

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Wot he said.

I would love to convert my P38 & wife's FL1 to get the better performance & lower running costs . . . . .but the real problem for me is the total cost of ownership still doesn't add up for us. Even at £1.90 per litre, we only do 4000 & 2000 miles each, so a long way of the money Ali & others have spent !!.

Still I do enjoy reading this thread and other EV conversion projects with interest. There's a couple or Z3 conversions over on zroadster.org that I'm following as well.