Sell the least favorite child - problem solved 4 in the family.
Wife gets a 4 seater soft top you get to keep the Freelander 2 and to experiment turning a Freelander 1 into a milk float. Tangiers Orange - gone, missing her
Replaced by Ewok what a mistake - now a happy Disco Sport owner

Nodge68 wrote:

My wife hates the i3, she says it's the worst looking vehicle BMW have made.

If I got a small EV to do my 80 miles per week, I'd have to get rid of my Freelander 2, which I love driving.

I'm looking at potentially turning a Freelander 1 into an EV, which for my weekly miles would be fine.
However the Freelander 2 is also used as our family holiday vehicle, as the wife insists on having a convertible of one form or another, but most are only 4 seaters, which for a family of 5 isn't very helpful.

The i3 can be a bit Marmite for sure, we have always loved the look since launch being unique and actually built to do a job rather than styled to attract customers, which is why it is so efficient being made of aluminium and carbon fibre it is only the weight of a Fiesta, and it is so much fun to drive.

ps, has she seen the new BMW grill designs?

But if the Mrs says “no” it’ll be dead in the water.

Good luck on the Freelander EV project, I am not being nasty but I won’t hold my breath waiting

Five seater conny? Evoque…..isn’t that a five seater? Regards

David

Lovely i6 has now gone, but not me......

Please let me know if anything in my post offends you, as I may wish to offend you again......

Andy131 wrote:

Sell the least favorite child - problem solved 4 in the family.
Wife gets a 4 seater soft top you get to keep the Freelander 2 and to experiment turning a Freelander 1 into a milk float.

I don't want a new EV enough to sell a child.
When the eldest daughter leaves uni, we'll be able to commit more cash to an EV.

A friend of mine is just buttoning up a Freelander 1 EV conversation, I've made a few custom driveline components for it.

It's actually a pretty easy conversion, but a Freelander 2 wouldn't be easy at all, although there's more room for the battery pack.

The wife can keep her convertible, she never puts the roof down anyway, so I don't see the logic myself, but it keeps her happy. 2009 Rimini Red SE TD4. Soon to be sold.
Hyundai Ionic 5 Ultimate on order.
Gone. 2006 Tonga Green i6 HSE.

There you go, it was that last line.  Regards

David

Lovely i6 has now gone, but not me......

Please let me know if anything in my post offends you, as I may wish to offend you again......

The FL1 sounds interesting, where I worked one of the engineers converted a Probe (the original) to EV, although back then as this was the 90”s I think he had to use lead acid batteries and parts from the states, what decided his choice was the company had installed about 8 or so chargers as the Focus EV was being developed ( that’s another story!), it had a range of just 30-40 miles but fine for him as he used it to and from work which was only 10 miles from his house.

Thankfully EV conversions are much better supported nowadays. Regards

David

Lovely i6 has now gone, but not me......

Please let me know if anything in my post offends you, as I may wish to offend you again......

Boxbrownie wrote:

Nodge68 wrote:

My wife hates the i3, she says it's the worst looking vehicle BMW have made.

If I got a small EV to do my 80 miles per week, I'd have to get rid of my Freelander 2, which I love driving.

I'm looking at potentially turning a Freelander 1 into an EV, which for my weekly miles would be fine.
However the Freelander 2 is also used as our family holiday vehicle, as the wife insists on having a convertible of one form or another, but most are only 4 seaters, which for a family of 5 isn't very helpful.

The i3 can be a bit Marmite for sure, we have always loved the look since launch being unique and actually built to do a job rather than styled to attract customers, which is why it is so efficient being made of aluminium and carbon fibre it is only the weight of a Fiesta, and it is so much fun to drive.

ps, has she seen the new BMW grill designs?

But if the Mrs says “no” it’ll be dead in the water.

Good luck on the Freelander EV project, I am not being nasty but I won’t hold my breath waiting

Five seater conny? Evoque…..isn’t that a five seater?

I'm not horrified by the looks of the i3 myself, but the wife hates them. The newest grill design is vomit inducing, as is BMW's idea to lease the heated seats.

Unfortunately making my FL1 EV is a way off yet, first I need to find one worthy of converting, then I need to find a good priced Leaf as a donor, but as both are in short supply, and I've a daughter in uni, that little project will need to wait.
Of course if I won the lottery, then I'd get a Polestar 2, which I think is just gorgeous. 2009 Rimini Red SE TD4. Soon to be sold.
Hyundai Ionic 5 Ultimate on order.
Gone. 2006 Tonga Green i6 HSE.

I wonder if the fire risks of EVs are real or exaggerated. This is the first time I have come across this side problem

EV's are no more likely to catch fire than a petrol vehicle, actually they're less likely to catch fire in a bad crash, as there's no heat or volatile liquids where the vehicle gets hit.
However NMC batteries do contain an alcohol based electrolyte, which does burn quite effectively should the battery get damaged. Unfortunately damaged lithium cells in these rare conditions can suffer thermal runaway and burn, hours or days after the first cells were damaged.
The best and most effective way to stop this, is to submerge the battery pack or whole vehicle in a water tank for a few days. Sounds extreme, but it's the safest way to control the issue.
Thankfully it's very unlikely and EV ends up in a fireball, and when LifePO4 lithium batteries become more common, the issue becomes a non-issue, as that battery chemistry is completely safe, as no volatile electrolyte is used. 2009 Rimini Red SE TD4. Soon to be sold.
Hyundai Ionic 5 Ultimate on order.
Gone. 2006 Tonga Green i6 HSE.

Last edited by Nodge68 on 10th Aug 2022 10:18 pm. Edited 1 time in total

Boxbrownie wrote:

The FL1 sounds interesting, where I worked one of the engineers converted a Probe (the original) to EV, although back then as this was the 90”s I think he had to use lead acid batteries and parts from the states, what decided his choice was the company had installed about 8 or so chargers as the Focus EV was being developed ( that’s another story!), it had a range of just 30-40 miles but fine for him as he used it to and from work which was only 10 miles from his house.

Thankfully EV conversions are much better supported nowadays.

The early Leaf had numerous issues with rapid charging and battery management ie no liquid cooling just air, which just isn’t good enough, if it were me doing the conversion I’d seriously look at Tesla bits, they are the “go to” salvage parts for most conversions.

You wouldn’t be starting with a very good baseline, it’ll work though obviously as your mate has done it.

I’d like to see it when finished……your only 45 minutes away in Winter…..4 hours in Summer  Regards

David

Lovely i6 has now gone, but not me......

Please let me know if anything in my post offends you, as I may wish to offend you again......

I'm with Nodge68 on this one.
Unless you are into battery management in a big way keep it simple, we have to remember that car manufacturers have teams of specialists - the battery guy isn't going to know much about the motor controller and the same can be said about the guy who specifies the transmission.

Air cooled will work, not as well as liquid cooled, it will be easier to implement and probably lighter as it doesn't need the same ancillaries. Tangiers Orange - gone, missing her
Replaced by Ewok what a mistake - now a happy Disco Sport owner

Either way you’ll need the battery management system from the donor vehicle, you can’t mix and match so it’s either Leaf, Tesla, BMW, Zoe or whatever, they will all need their requisite management systems. Regards

David

Lovely i6 has now gone, but not me......

Please let me know if anything in my post offends you, as I may wish to offend you again......

Yes the BMS really needs to come from the donor, along with the charger, inverter and 12V battery charge module.
My friend has used a Leaf BMS and cells from an E Golf. He's had issues with the configuration of the BMS and charger. This means at the moment he's using a DIY charger, which isn't exactly fast with a 45kWhr battery pack.
He'll solve the issue, but at the moment he just needs to come up with a plan in how to do that. 2009 Rimini Red SE TD4. Soon to be sold.
Hyundai Ionic 5 Ultimate on order.
Gone. 2006 Tonga Green i6 HSE.

So...
Battery fires
Who would have thought the salvation of the motor trade (EVs) would have potential issues. Odd as i am just listening to the news and there is alot about fires (not EVs) and there is a certain irony that the battery is potentially hazardous and one of the issues that was not mentioned was the number of cars with these batteries worldwide and the potential reuse of them once no longer capable of running the car.
Who would like storage batteries with this risk?
So will that result in these dirty batteries not being reused and going into some battery graveyard somewhere. So saving on pollution and co2 but the used battery contributes to pollution and if explosive co2
And...electricity is still going up, cost to buy EVs is approx. 25% more and insurance companies have you pants down
What not to like

Granted there is currently a problem with "used" EV batteries, as I have mentioned before one bad cell takes out a stack. The dead batteries though contain a lot of chemical energy and once they get hot you have a serious problem - so storage isn't something I would want to get involved in at present.

Then again I know that some big players in the precious metals business are working on solutions for metal recovery, it's the old adage "where there's muck there's bass" and when it comes to lithium there's a lot of brass to be made.

A lot of people earning a living out of ICE emissions cleaning - they are going to need an alternative income stream, but not before there is sufficient scrap from old vehicles to make it industrially viable. Once they have a solution and it's working it's just a matter of time before a competitor (in China?) copies the process and can do it cheaper as they haven't had the development costs. - timing is everything. Tangiers Orange - gone, missing her
Replaced by Ewok what a mistake - now a happy Disco Sport owner