EVRIC - Holden Barina (Swift) Electric Conversion
 

Hi, I'm Ric from South Australia and I am in the middle of converting a Holden Barina (Suzuki Swift rebadged). I am going to use TS Lithium Iron Phosphate cells with the Advanced DC X91-4001 motor at 128Volt. I am trialing an original Kelly KDH14500 on a massive heatsink. Good luck you say! The adapter plate and coupler have been completed and am waiting on a few other items. I have a website: EVRIC - Electric Car Conversion

Welcome to the site Ric. It sounds like a nice project. What made you want to do an electric conversion?

Basically, I wanted to be able to drive around in a quiet car. Also. I think the challange of the project appealled to me. Now I can't wait 'till it's finished...

Hi evric - welcome to the site.

That's 2 Aussie Barina conversions I've seen on the web. Yours is the first generation - nice and light!

Did you film the video of Rod Muller's 48 volt Suzuki Alto? (I think you did from the ending credits.)

His is pretty similar in specs to my car. And about as speedy! Sounds like he also "upgraded" to a lighter glider as well.

Yes, I have filmed all of the EVRIC videos so far. When I get to drive the finished car I will have someone help me film while I drive everywhere. Rod drives his 48V Alto every day. He loves it.

Hi all, I have now finished my EV conversion of the Holden Barina (Suzuki Swift) from petrol to electric drive. A new video slideshow has been added to the website on the progress page: Final Stages
I hope to have more video soon from within the car to show how it drives.

Driving the EV
 

Hi all, I have just added a YouTube video which shows the car actually moving. This is what the last two years was building up to.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JP9JG5Xe-9k

Regards,
Eric.

Previous to making the above video I had now taken out the Kelly controller and put in the Australian designed and built, ZEVA MC600S, and the car goes great as you can see. With the old Kelly KDH14500 it was very slow off the mark.

Regards,
Eric

Yeah, that seems to be the general consensus of all kelly controller owners.

Nobody's going to realize what you're driving ;) :thumbup:

Ric - congrats on the milestone!

Hi,
It is such a long time since a added to this thread.
It is now 10 years since I started the Holden Barina conversion and the same time since I purchased the Thundersky LiFePO4 90Ah cells.
After I finished the conversion, I calculated that I would have a range of around 80Km (50 Miles) which I never verified, because I never let the battery pack get that low.
Now the cells are showing signs of age and deterioration as is have had the BMS alarm (for low cell voltage) at around 49km (30 miles).
It is very hard to tell which cell is causing the alarm, as the BMS just has a loop through each cell and when one cell goes low the loop is broken and the BMS master give as alarm. As soon as the load is removed the cell quickly recovers and acts like all the rest.

All of the cells still fully charge at about the same rate.

I now have to make the decision of what to do.
I would like to do another car (sports car) but that would cost around $40,000, but I want my wife to be able to drive my next EV.
So I have decided to just replace the cells with some CALB CA100's which just happen to be the same size as the Thundersky 90's...
Then when these have worn out, there should be plenty of used commercial EVs around for me to choose from.
Please note: At the moment, in Australia. the only fully electric cars that you can buy are the TESLAs (not Model 3 yet) and the BMW i3 - That's it.
We have many other types coming in the next 2 or three years.
That's it for my update.
By the way, I still love driving the little Barina EV. It is such fun.

Can you upload some current pictures? That would be great! Some of us need pictures to help us learn.

You wouldn’t consider a Volt, I take it? Seems like it would have enough EV range for your typical use.

Congrats on your 10 year milestone!

Hi Neil,
I will do soon - in the mean time, there are many videos to watch on my website:
EVRIC - Electric Car Conversion

Eric

Thanks MetroMPG,
The VOLT is a nice car. This car was only available for a while in the form of the first version. I did have a chance to drive one.
They didn't sell very well in Australia - so they didn't bring the newer, better version into Australia.

Eric