I bought this car a long time ago and quickly fell in love with this workhorse.
This isn't my first EV conversion project, some years ago I converted ZAZ-1103 and Ukrainian Niva to electric power.
You may ask "Why Passat"?
Firstly, everything in this car is really well done. It has a quite advanced configuration for its years. Air conditioner, heated seats, airbags, ABS, it has practically everything you need.
At the same time, this car is quite simple. It doesn't have a central computer, so it'll be relatively easy to make all these systems work.
Of course, there will be some challenges, but nothing too complicated.
Going forward, my plan is to ensure stability and operability of all standard vehicle systems like power steering, power assisted brakes, air conditioning, ABS, etc.
In this video we take a detailed look at the battery in my VW Passat B4 EV. It now consists of two battery modules. The first battery module is about 20 kWh and the second one (temporary) is also 20 kWh, which gives us 40 kWh total capacity.
Keeping in mind that this is still my temporary setup, I travelled around 240 km and there was still 15% of the total charge left.
We'll take a look at the battery cells with NMC chemistry that I use and see how I installed a BMS.
It's time for the Electric Passat B4 first drive! We take a quick look at how I took the car back home, put the battery in, connected the controller and the motor, and how everything looks at this point.
As for today, we have the motor and the gearbox installed. The air conditioner's radiator has been installed too. This was a lot of work, but we definitely have some more challenges ahead of us.
In this video we start the process of a VW Passat B4 conversion to electric 🔋 EV power. Ideally, we're aiming to keep all systems of the car like air conditioning, heating, ABS, in working condition.