My Electric Fiesta

This is all about my Electric Fiesta conversion, since first owning this, which I bought second hand already converted , the little red car sadly rusted away. So it was time to pull out all the EV parts, motor and controller, and put the whole lot back into a newer Fiesta. This is currently underway, and in doing so I have found many things that had not been done correctly so I am rectifying these as I go. The complete breakdown on this will be put up as soon as I finish it. Until then take a look at the old one below.

What you have here is a view under the bonnet. On the right you can see three of the 12volt traction batteries wired in series which make up part of the power supply for the vehicle. There are five more under the back seat and one more in the boot, which gives a total of 108volts. At the front, to the left slightly, are the two 60volt Lynch motors wired in series to allow them to run at up to 120volts. These are joined dumbbell fashion to the standard Fiesta gearbox via a toothed belt (similar to a cam belt). Finally the black box on the front left is the Curtis controller which is what allows the power to be regulated to the motors via the throttle peddle.
This is the view under the back seat showing five batteries that are mounted in a special tray which has been fitted under the seat, where the petrol tank would normally be fitted. These help make up the 108 volts which is required to operate the motors.
Here we see the final battery for the motors fitted into the slightly modified spare wheel area (this has had to be lowered slightly to allow for the extra height of the battery). The spare wheel is still located on the left of the boot space. You will also notice a smaller red battery which runs all the 12volt systems (lights, wipers, radio, etc) for the car.
Finally this is the dashboard which is mainly unchanged apart from the removal of the fuel and temperature gauges and the addition of a voltmeter and ammeter (which are in white). There is a large red knob, which is located on the right of the steering column in the cubby hole next to the fuse box, is an emergency kill button incase things get out of hand. Hit this and you disconnect the main battery pack from the motors.

Driving the Fiesta is very similar to driving a normal car except that this vehicle has no clutch, yet it still remains a conventional four speed manual gearbox. When you take your foot off the throttle in a conventional petrol/diesel engine the revs fall to idle very quickly which would want to slow the car down but the forces in the gearbox would stop you from changing gear or cause the gear change to be very rough so a clutch is used to disconnect the engine. With electric motors, when you take your foot off the throttle they will keep spinning very freely and do not provide any real resistance to the gearbox, hence it feels as though you are just free wheeling which you virtually are. It is then just a case of selecting the next gear you require and reapplying the throttle. The only thing you must be aware of is not to select a gear that would spin the motors faster than their maximum speed. For example, selecting first gear at 40mph would probably cause major damage as the maximum speed in first gear should be 15-20mph and, being that the motors are basically connected permanently to the gearbox, selecting first gear would cause the motors to turn at twice their normal speed. The current top speed is 65mph. The maximum range of 20 miles is only obtainable at a lower speed of around 35mph so it is very well suited to urban driving, with short durations on duel carriageways or motorways, as at top speed the motors will draw up to 300 amps plus, which will soon flatten the batteries. They can be recharged in around 5hrs or I can give them a quick top up at any stage.

Please feel free to E-Mail me with any questions you may have and I will try to answer them.

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