That’s not a 1991, probably a 2001. I have a 2000 Passat GLX and it looks identical. Good to know that my car is good for something… I’ve been procrastinating on selling it for months now. When I bought the car I loved it, it’s super-fun to drive when you get it out in some canyons, is super-comfortable to ride in, and has all kinds of fun gadgets in it. Other than that, these cars are a total maintenance nightmare (last thing to go was the alternator in the middle of a drive from Los Angeles to San Francisco, and cost me $750 in parts and labor to repair), so it’s no surprise that this fellow found one with a blown engine. The cargo space for the batteries is probably what makes it so attractive to convert to EV, otherwise it’s a HUGE car and weighs in at well over 4000 pounds. (It’s literally twice the car as my girlfriend’s tiny Honda Fit, and gets less than half the gas mileage and requires a diet of premium gasoline)

VERY very cool.

if he can get the vw to go that fast, its also possible to get a smaller car with 4 fat people to go that fast.

Acceleration, range, charge time?

You can get an old VW to 88MPH by rolling it down a steep enough hill.

(Site is down…. So I can’t tell if that stuff is available there)

Electric car technology seem to be getting better and better. It’s possible I might even see the end of mass fossil fuel car use in my lifetime.

Weight is where electric cars take it in the neck.

The buy has put loads of time and thought in to this and has obviously pulled it off brilliantly.

Well done and good on him.

There are plenty of other homebrew electric cars out there. There are plenty that go a lot faster than 80mph. What’s the big deal?

“Converting his 2001 Volkswagen Passat to run on electricity took 11 months and cost about $20,000.”

I have driven the car 99 mph on flat ground, and it still has plenty of power to go faster. The controller is putting out about 120 hp. It has been my daily driver for 4 weeks now, and I have 900 miles on it now.

0-60 mph using only 2nd gear is 16 seconds flat. 80% torque will break the wheels loose in 1st gear, It will lay a patch of rubber about 10 feet long =)

For more updates, please check out my website http://etischer.com/awdev/

The B5 Passat has a lower Cd than a Corvette, so no, it’s not a really horrible choice. Mine gets ~30 mpg on the highway with a moderately sized V6, so it’s fairly slippery. In addition, it’s got a longitudinally mounted engine, which probably simplifies getting the thing mounted and power to the wheels.

That’d be an early 2001, prior to the update mid-year when they added chrome strips all over.

The point is that you can build one with AC drive, Regen and can do freeway speeds at an affordable price rather than the insane prices of $80,000 and up.

It is actually not and easy thing to do but it can be done and can be affordable and be safe and last an easy 100,000 miles to boot.

Mafia won’t shut it down. Folks been doing conversions since before the 70′s oil crisis.

Pete :)