I cannot believe our two conversion projects use the exact same motor, controller, pedal, and battery pack specs. This is uncanny. It's like finding out you have a long-lost twin. Congrats on your build!

This is awesome! looks like all your hard work paid off in a big way. Looking forward to seeing the rest of the project!

Wow! That was surprisingly affordable for a project. Great work! Also the views you guys have are incredible! What a gorgeous location for a city.

I love how honest and fluid the video feel, definitely gonna try to build my vw bug after I finish my automotive degree

Been waiting for a while to see this, awesome job! Cant wait to see more and learn why you done some of the things you done.

Awesome! Been following the process for a while now, nice to see it out on the road. Congrats!

Awesome project 😁👍🏼 looking forward to see the upcoming process, greetings from Germany 🇩🇪

Great to see this exciting project progressing. I've a 1962 Landrover that's been sat in a field for 10 years waiting for some love and attention.... maybe, just maybe....!

Hey Doc. Love seeing this. It's a great alternative to the HA stuff. Love what you've done. For basic entertainment Android Auto would work, but using a Pi would allow you to even run a basic Home Assistant install in it and have a lot more stuff.

Thanks for sharing! Look forward to the opportunity to learn from your wins and failures.

Congrats Doc !

Looking great - well done on getting it moving - harder than most people would understand

This is trippy. I bought a 69 beetle here in Australia about 4 years ago same color. For 300 without a engine with same idea. But project has been forgotten for bit. But decided I will sus out if any new builders with forklift motors and here you are.

Great ingenuity and a great job ! Well done !

I would love to see the finished look of the VW. I’m a big fan, you are the man!

Absolutely enjoyed this video, I love also your area such breath taking sights..

That is pretty cool. I have the very same thought in the back of my mind, but will probably never do it. Btw, awesome place you live in, majestic mountains in the background.

Dr Zzz great job. This is an awesome project.

Nice job! Looks like a lot of fun.

Nice! Fun project kudos for going full diy and finding your our components and suchZ

I'm jealous. Such a fun project.

Fantastic!! Hope to see the next material and future tasmotize

Whoo-hoooo! Way to go Doc and congrats for getting it going. Looks like a fun ride. :-)

Nice work Dr Zzs. I'm building an electric Jeep Liberty myself. Fun stuff!

That is amazing!!! Very impressive!!!

It's okay to admit you wish your dad was more like this guy when you were a kid. It's okay.

Great job man! I'll have to come check it out sometime.

Love it! Cant wait for more!

That’s awesome I am doing up a 2004 Saturn I will be starting on in the spring. I have a lot to learn yet.

Awesome! So looking forward to your build series. (Tried building an ev in 79~80 so I can totally relate) Sub'd.

cwl vid literally gave more help than anyone within the first 2 minutes of play thanks

Cool Build.

great progress, enjoy :)

even 3 years old it is a great story fun to watch and a car maybe build here, not far away in Lower Saxony The biggest advantage is that you took care for the body and did not instantly cut out parts cause you have a genuine, while others simply cut away everything.

Good job 👍 I saw that Nissan Leaf in the background 😎

Nice exiting video

I've been interested in e-cars for 30 years! I built one around a Fiat 128 back in the '80s. I used a military aircraft starting motor and lead-acid batteries. It was moderately successful! I gave up on DIY eventually.. I now have two Chevy Volts. I'm in Utah County... Old bugs are a very good platform for a DIY project.

Love it. Love how there seems to be more freedoms in your country to do a project like that and be allowed to drive it on the road.

Very coool. So great to hear the kids laughing and participating. Blessed.. ;)

been waiting for this vid Doc 👍👍

Been watching your home automation stuff forever man, keep those up, but this finally got me to subscribe. Awesome stuff!

If you want to go bare metal, you can have all the panels you can take off dipped in stripper. A powder coating place here in Kentucky has a huge tank. They could probably dip the whole car.

Man, I'm so happy that KZfaq decided to recommend this video to me. I'm really interested in the whole process of making an electric car. I mostly try to find electric motorcycles but you video was great too. I can't wait for the "prequels" :D

Damn Z, that is cool stuff. My first car back in 1976 was a 61 beetle! Would love to have an electric beetle.

Great work keep it up

Very cool project ;)

Love All your Videos- From the RGB leds, Home Assistant- Raspberry Pi - Etc....Im Also a Destiny 2 Guardian, Master Mechanic by trade, New to home Automation-- Thank you for Sharing and Teaching- Im A few years behind you but on my way- Keep up the good work-

well done bro

This is so great! Well done, I'm looking forward to your build videos because I'm busy restoring an early Beetle gearbox with the intention of fitting a forklift motor. I've designed the adaptor plate and battery boxes for Nissan Leaf modules and my gearbox is almost together. I'd like to see how you manufactured your coupler because getting that wrong at 3000 rpm could be explosive :-)

It looks like you have a motor from a Hyster E50XM2. That motor is an SEM (seperately excited motor) or shunt wound motor not a series wound motor. That's why the original motor had only 8-10 gauge field cables and 2/0 armature cables. You might try to get the traction controller from the forklift that you took the motor out of. I believe it is a 600 amp controller. .

do you have a parts list and build cost (time and $). I'm curious about the efficiency and top speed of the forklift motor and how it works with the gearing. Other conversions I've seen talk about leaving it in one gear for anything other than mixes of steep hill starts and freeway runs.

Awesome. congratulations! Should use an ESP(or similar) with current clamp to monitor current real time on a dial in the dash!

Can't wait for all that footage you've not posted yet about getting it to this point :)

Cool !! I used to put a sandbag in the front of my '68 bug to keep it down :)

Good to see a economic conversion. I have also been trying to economize. I'd say your dc motor is much faster than my modest ac motor. :)

Awesome video. Be nice if you answered or took care of the slow speed with the higher voltage. Perhaps I’ll see the answer in another of your videos. Well done on the project 👍

Well Done

This is the best project. Love it. Inspired by it. Hey instead of raising those seats up, what do you think of cutting the roof down? (i.e. chop top) It'd be interesting to see how much you can computerize this thing.

Nice!

Love it!! Wondering how it’s going since the update. :-)

Nice one Doc. :)

I was thinking about using 4 golfcart motors.one for each wheel. Technically I think I have it figured out except for how it works.when u corner, some should slow down, ect the 4wd part. Great work u did here u allmost done with the hard part. The rest is elbow grease work.

Fantastic I’ve been thinking about doing this project for years but been afraid to attempt it.

Very Cool, Good for you Doc! I heard Telsa was switching to Li Phospate batteries too. Hopefully, the price will come down for you to get another one.

just got done watching, awesome content dude. can't wait to see what you do I think many people are gonna like this. good theory about using Android or pi to read or show the info. I wonder how developed something like that would be seems quite niche.

Hey Doc, if you are thinking of putting a carputer in there, you should have a look at crankshaft. it’s an open source project that has android auto, Bluetooth, touch controls and some other features. It looks like a cool project!

Ironically this LiFePO4 chemistry is what Tesla Shanghai is moving too. Just wildly more advance packaging. Man seems like now is a good time to do Convertion Builds as the knowlege base and parts are available. I started looking into BEV builds in the early 2000s when stuff like Inverter Motor Controllers were hard to obtain. Glorious hard work project car you have there, it will feal sweeter that you built it your self.

Awesome, very cool. Keep in mind if you are using the type 1 trans they are very weak

Congratulations! Are you going to have heat or A/C? Interested to see how you develop the controls. It's so flat in your subdivision, then BAM! there's a mountain in someone's backyard. No foothills per se like what we have here in the southeast. Do you ever climb up to the top of them? How high are they?

Freaking cool project!! Still very strange to are your whole body instead of a floating head😂

Awesome

Subbed!!!

Congratulations. Take a current reading from the motor as well as the battery, you will find at low speeds the motor current is much higher than the battery current. For more rpm, increase battery voltage.

Aye, im also a utah guy looking to do an electric conversion in my beetle, any tips?

You were so excited... i kept thinking the popo was going to pull you over any minute.

Very cool project, I look forward to seeing how you progress with it. I was quite surprised to hear that you bought the motor controller from Hungary.. Is it a special designed circuit or simply just the price was unbeatable? 🙂

My first thought: Could you flip the rear axle transmission and point the engine towards the front of the car? If yes, that might have given you more room for the engine and better weight distribution with the engine more towards the middle of the car. Really radical would be 'Could you point the engine upward?"

Were did you find your motor? Were you planning on going to 18650 batteries? Assumed from the trash fire pic.

Great project. Why do you think it is so slow?

Entertaining. Im sure that powerplant is not the last that bug will see.

Am I watching some car rebuild show on Discovery Channel? This was awesome. 🎉

Awesome project, Doc! Does this setup includes some sort of ECU? A fault tolerant CAN bus perhaps? This gonna be an adventure for you, and for us the viewers too!

Any updates?? I just bought a bug and intend to do the same. Still optimistic a full DIY is doable and safe or is EV west the way to go?

When is the HA component coming out?

Your controller needs a real good finned heatsink with a good fan to keep it cool. You need a controller with a minimum of 600 amps peak and better if you can have more since you are running a low voltage system. 96 volts is minimal voltage for a street vehicle. Mine started out as a 72 volt then up to 96 then up to 120 and then up to 156. I started with a 64 Ghia then upgraded and now I currently have a 62 Bug. I ran it with an 11” Kostov Motor and now Im going to put in an AC 35 with the 650 amp controller and run this at 120 volts. Best to invest in a proper motor adapter. I currently have one from EV West and Im utilizing their 200mm Porsche Flywheel and Interference fit coupler. Currently no motor resides in my beastie. Just getting things ready. I do use LiFePO4 cells. Going to try Nissan Leaf Modules.

thumps up!

that combo, assuming the controller is capable of 500 amps , should be capable of 48000 watts, more HP than the car had , and about double the torque. premade battery packs often have a bms limiting the output wayy too low for the application , hence people end up making their own,.

Love to see amitures take on a challenge and win. It means the corperares don't have all the answers. Carbon fibre fenders and led lights

Can you tell me the amount of torque this motor supplies? as well as the max speed, please?

where are u located? thats some mountains i'd like to hike.

Great Stuff..So did you manage to get the speed up?

I'm guessing that the fork lift motor is too low of KV (rpm per volts), and you can only raise the voltage so much

How many kWh in that battery? Also, good job :)

Is there a reason you don't use the forklift controls?

Now You Just Need An Old Fiberglass Wide Eyed, 7 pc Baja Kit + Nerf Side Bars! I Used To Build Them Back In The 1970's! LOL G@@D Job! Thanks

greetings from new york in which state you live I bought that same speed sweeper and it didn't work for me in my project I need another one, I have a 96 volt kit that I am selling them, keep going good luck

IT'S ALIVE!!!

👍👍

i'd love to see a tachometer that shows the wattage on this thing with a fuel tank meter that shows the Watt-hours left in the battery pack. Also i suggest making or getting a single speed transmission because thats how electrics work.

Nic work. Nuce backdrop there. Where do you live? Canada?