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Abstract— A conversion of an internal combustion engine The stated criteria implied that an older vehicle should be
vehicle (ICE) to an electric drive vehicle (EV) was a project chosen which would also have an additional advantage of a
carried out at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and low cost. Finally an Opel Kadett C built in 1978 (Fig. 1) was
Computing (FER). This project has lead to valuable conclusions selected as a test vehicle. The car met all the criteria except
about the ICE to EV conversion, its costs and benefits. The whole
process of conversion will be presented in this article, including
not having a brake servo (braking booster). Its condition was
the applied regulations, total labor and components expenses. very good and the price acceptable.
Finally, an analysis of the conversion cost-benefit ratio has been Initial tests were made on the vehicle so that the equipment
done, taking into account lower fuel prices, maintenance costs, for the conversion could be properly chosen. A torque
battery life etc. The comparison was done between an EV and a measurement device was mounted on one of the propulsion
diesel ICE vehicle. wheels. A mathematical model of the vehicle power train was
constructed using the measured torque curves during
Keywords: electric vehicle, EV conversion, batteries, cost-benefit acceleration and continuous driving as well as the car mass
ratio. and geometry. The desired speed for continuous driving was
I. INTRODUCTION set at 70 km/h having in mind that the EV will mostly be used
for testing during urban commuting. The desired range of the
EV-s will no doubt, play a key role in the future of EV was set to roughly 100 km using the information that an
transportation, but it is still unclear when they will be in average car in Europe travels around 40 km/day. With the
general use. For that to happen the issues such as changing the desired range set the approximate mass of the batteries and the
infrastructure, different equipment standards and poor battery total mass of the car was calculated. Using the mathematical
quality have to be solved. Battery technology improves model the rated power of the prime mover was calculated. The
drastically with the amount of money and effort invested into parameters of the chosen asynchronous motor are shown in
research, but many flaws have to be corrected. Because of the Table I.
high costs of the EV models currently present on the market, a
great number of conversions form ICE to EV will be made in
the near future. The conversion has been made with the
intention of gathering valuable insights into the matter as well
as to use the EV as a mobile electrical measurement
laboratory ([1] – [4]).
x Limp – Home mode: with low battery voltage (when To supply all the 12 VDC devices in the car a step down
depleted) the converter will decrease the output power 110/12 DC/DC converter was installed. The total power of
to preserve the batteries lights, horn, electric heaters, fans, PC, servo vacuum pump etc.
x Thermal Derating: when the inverter temperature was rated at 600 W.
increases over 80°C it decreases the output power
TABLE I
PRIME MOVER (AM) PARAMETERS
x Emergency main power circuit breaker As far as the EV fuel costs are concerned it is necessary to
x Electric window heater and fan consider the whole grid - wheel cycle of the electricity. The
x Vacuum pump and chamber for the breaking booster efficiency of the charger is set somewhere around 0,95, the
x The propulsion shaft has to carry at least one third of charging process (heat losses) at 0,8, discharging at 0,8, the
the total vehicle mass inverter at 0,95 and the motor at 0,9. Cumulatively the grid -
x The prime mover has to have a power of minimum wheel cycle has an efficiency of 0,52. All in all, for 9,2 kWh
3 kW per 1.000 kg of the vehicle mass of propulsion energy a total of 17,7 kWh of electricity needs
x All equipment has to be firmly attached to the chassis to be taken from the grid. With the price of 9 €ct/kWh of
electricity consumed in the household the cost of one “tank”
A report was made containing relevant information about of fuel for the EV is € 1,6. With the distance of 40,7 km which
changes made on the vehicle and its operation as well as the our test EV can cover with one battery charging the fuel price
description of the used electric equipment. per km is €3,9 ct/km. The ratio of fuel price per km of an ICE
and EV vehicle is 2,35.
IV. MEASUREMENTS DONE WITH THE CONVERTED EV Fig. 6 Test track altitude configuration
V
115
105
95
85
75
A
300
200
100
0
-100
Ah
100
75
50
25
0
V
115
105
95
85
75
A
300
200
100
0
-100
Ah
70
50
30
10
There is another interesting thing about the measurements - [2] A. Hande, S. Kamalasadan, A. Srivastava, “Selective Voltage
Measurement System for Series Connected Battery Packs“,
after 1h 42min the battery was depleted to its lowest permitted Proceedings of the IEEE SoutheastCon, pp. 22 – 27, 2006, DOI
capacity (the depth of discharge) and the battery voltage 10.1109/second.2006.1629317
suddenly dropped. The vehicle was stopped to prevent [3] T.P. Bohn, R.D. Lorenz, E.R. Olson, “Measurement of in-situ currents
damage to the battery. After 25 min the vehicle was towed in a hybrid electric vehicle integrated power module using giant
magnetoresistive sensors“, Power Electronics in Transportation, pp. 55
away. During the towing the engine was turned on and the – 59, 2004, DOI 10.1109/PET.2004.1393795
battery was charged to 10 Ah of energy through regenerative [4] Yin Ying, Xin Tang, Xiaonan Li, Xiaodong Li, H. Weiss,
braking. “Implementation of Rugged Measurement System on Electric Vehicle“,
International Conference on Actual Problems of Electronic Instrument
Engineering, pp. 166 – 171, 2006, 10.1109/APEIE.2006.4292413
[5] Yu Zhilong, Li Dongsheng, He Long, Wang Haiying, “Hardware
V. CONCLUSION
design on electric vehicle LCD display system based on CAN bus“, 6th
International Forum on Strategic Technology (IFOST), Vol. 1, pp. 283
Although the conversion from ICE to EV is not a simple or – 286, 2011, DOI 10.1109/IFOST.2011.6021023
[6] H. Weiss, “Revitalization, performance measurement, and
cheap thing to do it gave plenty of useful experience. The final improvement of electric vehicles“, International Conference on Actual
conclusion drawn from the project so far is that ICE to EV Problems of Electronic Instrument Engineering, pp. 108 – 113, 2008,
conversion presents an interesting market during the transition DOI 10.1109/APEIE.2008.4897068
period if such conversions are to be done for fleets of cars of [7] K. Muehlbauer, F. Bachl, D. Gerling, “Comparison of measurement
and calculation of power losses in AC/DC-converter for electric
the same type. In this scenario the price of the conversion vehicle drive“, International Conference on Electrical Machines and
would be reduced drastically and the cost benefit ratio Systems (ICEMS), pp. 1 – 4, 2011, DOI
increased. Our test EV Kadett will be a platform for many 10.1109/ICEMS.2011.6073652
student projects in the future and thus enable us to gather [8] M. Gougani, M. Chapariha, J. Jatskevich, “Locking electric differential
for brushless DC machine-based electric vehicle with independent
more useful experience which can be used in the wheel drives“, IEEE Vehicle Power and Propulsion Conference
transportation market. (VPPC), pp. 1 – 6, 2011, DOI 10.1109/VPPC.2011.6043122
Gradually with solving the battery related problems (such [9] L.W. Juang, P.J. Kollmeyer, T.M. Jahns, R.D. Lorenz, “System
as low battery capacity and high costs) the EVs will become identification-based lead-acid battery online monitoring system for
electric vehicles“, IEEE Energy Conversion Congress and Exposition
more important means of transportation. However, it is (ECCE), pp. 3903 – 3910, 2010, DOI 10.1109/ECCE.2010.5617776
necessary to state the probable growth in electricity costs and [10] J.T.B.A. Kessels, B. Rosca, H.J. Bergveld, P.P.J. van den Bosch, “ On-
demand with the gradual increase of number of EVs. line battery identification for electric driving range prediction“, IEEE
There are a lot of plans for additional system installation Vehicle Power and Propulsion Conference (VPPC), pp. 1 – 6, 2011,
DOI 10.1109/VPPC.2011.6043022
such as on-line torque measurement ([11], [12]), android [11] I. J. Garshelis, “Torque and Power Measurement”, in Measurement,
applications for BMS, etc. All of them will lead to new Instrumentation, and Sensors Handbook CRCnetBase 1999, CRC Press
comprehension of the EV phenomenon. LLC, 1999.
[12] H. Dzapo, Z. Stare and N. Bobanac, “Portable Wireless Measuring
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