Page 1 of 1

Got my Audi A2 EV working

Posted: Tue Jun 30, 2009 12:14 pm
by audia2ev
Still a bit of work to do - but it is running:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJdgCjrbbvs

Posted: Wed Jul 01, 2009 8:35 am
by MB
Congratulations! I've often thought the Audi A2 would make a great basis for an EV conversion.

Posted: Thu Jul 02, 2009 7:31 pm
by geekygrilli
Brilliant, well done!

Nice area/roads too! God, I hate London.

Posted: Sat Jul 04, 2009 7:40 am
by qdos
Excellent, well done ! Would be good to see some photos of the car and installation

Posted: Sat Jul 04, 2009 7:55 am
by timpootle
You'll be wanting this, then ;-)

http://groups.google.com/group/audia2ev/web/home

Posted: Sat Jul 04, 2009 3:02 pm
by ChrisB
Nice one , I'm about halfway through the Youtube vids now, going to look at the rest later.

Love the hand throttle :lol:

ChrisB

Posted: Mon Jul 06, 2009 3:36 pm
by marktime
Very impressive and is that a Prius in the driveway as you return?


MT

Posted: Mon Jul 13, 2009 7:43 pm
by audia2ev
Yes, my other car is a Por... er Prius.

Hand throttle is now swapped for more conventional foot operated system aka pedal. Mounted the pot on the front of the original pedal pot, seems to fit rather well, activated via a push(well, pull) rod.

Since first run I have made a few adjustments and improvements, notably pedal above and attached a 3rd mount point (4th in fact) for the motor, from bottom of diff to engine mount frame, which not surprisingly takes a bit of the slack out of the system :oops:

On this front I feel that that motor is a little loose on the (original) mounts, any opinions about stiffening it up? I get a slight wobble and hesitation as I accelerate through about 4000rpm, feels to me like there's a bit of kind of harmonic resonance/vibration that isn't there at low revs and high revs. Not much, just a bit of hesitation and wobble, I back off the accelerator and it goes and then I can accelerate through (I'll try and video it).

ABS works fine, got the brake lights going when regen activates too (around here rather important since most Italians drive about 2m off yr bumper at any speed 10 - 160 kph). The acc/regen is really neat, probably cuts down braking by 90% and much simpler than above mentioned Prius which hasn't got enough regen torque in my opinion. Overall performance isn't noticeably different from the original A2, assuming one drove around normally and didn't try to race. Plenty of torque up hills, I've taken it to 90kph so far and runs smoothly. However, I want to get some batteries forward to improve the half shaft geometry which is too angled for the moment, front is 5cm higher than original.

My most wanted improvement now is to get the power steering working again, this was operating via the CAN. Am planning to hack in to just activate the pump bypassing the CAN (which is totally absent since I have removed the poor A2's brains, its ECU). Might have some kind of relay to cut it out about 30kph or so. Any suggestions?

Posted: Mon Aug 03, 2009 11:27 am
by Grumpy-b
I have been looking at the ways of controlling an electric power steering pump from an ASTRA H this is also Can bus controlled, and is ver similar to the one you already have in the A2. There seems little way apart from getting a Canbus signal to kick in the electronics. I have taken the case apart and its actually a rather simple permananet magnet brushless motor. SO it may be possible to discard all the electronics and substitute a brushless DC controller. I have yet to look at this further, but worth consideration.

Grumpy-b

Posted: Mon Aug 03, 2009 8:33 pm
by ChrisB
I must admit I was wondering if it was possible to bin all the CAN BUS twaddle and just feed the pump/motor direct, jobs a good'en ........... or is it not that simple :?


ChrisB