Bill Carlson didn’t just dream about owning a DeLorean — he electrified the fantasy. On a recent episode of the VWIDTalk podcast, Bill shared how he converted his 1981 DeLorean into a fully electric vehicle using parts from a salvaged Chevy Bolt. Without any prefab kits, he swapped in the Bolt’s drivetrain, battery pack, and electronics, fabricating custom mounts, axles and 3D-printed interior components to make it all work. The result? A retro-futuristic EV that blends stainless-steel nostalgia with possible a 200-plus miles of real-world range — and turns more heads than anything he’s ever driven.
What makes Carlson’s build stand out isn’t just the hardware — it’s the engineering ethos behind it. From designing custom PCBs for window control integration to relocating and re-labeling an entire vehicle wiring harness, his garage now houses not just a DeLorean, but an expert class in DIY electrification.
“I wanted it to look stock, but feel like the future,” Carlson said. His next challenge? Adding DC fast charging and possibly tackling a Nash Metropolitan EV conversion. If you’ve ever wondered how to merge ’80s iconography with modern torque and zero tailpipe emissions, this build might be the blueprint.
If you’ve ever chased down a rare part number, dreamed about building your perfect GTI or just love a good car story, this one’s for you. Get the full story on the VWIDTalk Podcast on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts ( Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overdrive and more).
Ed. note — this article ran earlier and we’ve brought it back to the fore so more of you can see it. We’ve also added a transcript, provided by AI and edited by a staffer.
The TTAC Creators Series tells stories and amplifies creators from all corners of the car world, including culture, dealerships, collections, modified builds and more.
Transcript:
0:00
[Music]
0:07
All right, hey folks, thanks for coming back to the VW ID Talk podcast. We’re back again with your hosts Wes and Yan.
0:12
This is the podcast where we talk about all things electric cars and try to help people understand the positive value that they bring and the general enjoyment we get out of modding ours.
0:18
So, we’ve been really blessed to be part of the VW ID Talk community. It’s a very positive community, reinforces each other, and we’re happy to continue that here on this online podcast.
0:32
So today, Yan, you want to tell us about Bill?
Bill Carlson
0:38
Yes, today we have a special guest, Bill Carlson. Hello Bill.
0:43
Bill: Hello.
0:44
He is, I would say, the extreme modder. He electrified a dream car. I’m not going to spoil the name of it yet because it would be a little queasy here today.
0:56
He modded his dream car and converted it to electric without any kit — with his head and hands and 3D printer and all the tools he has in the garage.
1:10
If you want to learn more about Bill’s projects, look up his name on YouTube and follow his channel. He has very in-depth coverage of all his projects.
1:17
Bill, welcome and thank you so much for joining us today.
1:23
Bill: Thank you for having me here. I’m happy to be here.
1:25
Thanks.
1:26
So, let’s maybe get into the quiz section. You EV converted a car that has one thing in common with the VW Golf Mark 1 — spoiler alert, it’s not a VW — but the car was built or designed by the same designer as the Golf Mark 1, Giorgetto Giugiaro.
1:54
Also, the car was featured in one of the Hollywood films that had to do with the future.
2:00
You brought your car even further into the future, which is unbelievable.
2:06
Bill: Yeah, it is. I was going to say go ahead and buzz in if you know the car, but now everybody knows it.
2:13
Yan: Everybody knows it, which you spoiled.
2:15
Bill: Yeah, I did.
2:16
Yan: Okay, so Bill, which car is it?
2:18
Bill: I’ve got a couple models of them here right behind me. So, it is a 1981 DeLorean.
2:23
Amazing, that is impressive.
2:25
Tell us the history. How you got the car and at first if you were restoring it or if at some point you decided to make it future-proof?
2:30
Bill: I always bought it to convert it to an electric vehicle. I was actually talking to my wife about this, even when we first met, just after moving in together, talking about hopes and dreams.
2:48
I told her 15 years ago that I wanted to buy a DeLorean and convert it to electric. It’s always been my dream, something I’ve wanted to do forever.
3:02
It’s definitely one of those pinnacle vehicles of my childhood that I’ve always wanted. The opportunity came during COVID.
3:10
When COVID hit, some people were laid off, and I think the owner needed to get rid of his vehicle quickly at the start of the pandemic.
3:24
I found out I was going to work from home forever. I was driving a Honda CRZ, which is a fantastic car, and I saw that DeLorean being offered for basically $20,000, which was a good deal.
3:42
I told my wife I wanted to buy that car, and she said she’d let me if I sold my current one. So I sold it within a week, and the DeLorean was on the way. She had no idea I was going to do the conversion.
4:00
Yan: So you were using the DeLorean as your daily driver for some time?
Bill: I didn’t have to drive anywhere during the pandemic. I was working from home at Microsoft making video games, so I didn’t need a car. It was perfect.
4:12
Yan: That’s amazing. Of course, that’s the car that became the Cybertruck, right?
4:18
Bill: So it was always destined to be electric. The DeLorean is better looking, I hope people agree.
4:24
Yan: I think so. It’s more compact, more stylish.
4:29
Bill: Let’s not judge. I’m sure some people listening might disagree with that comparison.
4:37
Yan: Even Cybertruck owners might say it’s not designed to be beautiful but interesting, cool, and futuristic. There’s a lot of great things about it.
4:49
Bill: It does look really cool, or interesting, exactly.
4:54
Yan: You’ve heard every joke there is about it, right? About going over 88 mph?
4:59
Bill: Oh yeah, on the DeLorean, yes. Every time I take it anywhere it’s an attention grabber. No car I’ve driven comes close to it. I’ve driven some nice cars, but this is on a different level.
5:17
You stop at a light, people scream at you, honk, roll the window down, say “I love your car, where’s the Flux Capacitor?”
5:23
Yan: Have you ever seen another DeLorean on the road besides yours?
5:30
Bill: Absolutely. Another person in my small town, Ellensburg, Washington, has one too. His is more stock, gas powered. There’s also a shop near Redmond, in Woodinville, that does restoration and repair for DeLoreans.
5:44
If you’re driving through Woodinville, you might see half a dozen DeLoreans parked out front.
6:03
Yan: That makes sense. I’ve maybe once seen a DeLorean on the road in my life.
6:10
Bill: They’re pretty rare. Obviously, they’re famous from the Back to the Future movies. Also, in The Wedding Singer, the rich boyfriend had a DeLorean. It’s a car of legend and brings back warm, fuzzy memories for me.
6:29
Yan: Good choice. We admire your taste.
6:36
Let’s go to your EV conversion because you worked on the car a lot. You first had to build a workshop to work on it, right?
6:43
Bill: Initially, I was in a townhouse with a two-car garage trying to work on it, which wasn’t very fun. I fully replaced the frame, rebuilt the suspension, new brakes—basically everything in the frame was brand new.
7:04
Yan: Did you build it with DeLorean parts or custom?
7:12
Bill: Not original spec DeLorean parts, but there’s a big community for DeLoreans, and almost no one runs stock stuff anymore. For suspension, everyone uses coilovers with adjustable settings and bigger vented brakes, which are very popular.
7:30
The car’s 40 years old, so you want upgrades, especially for an electric conversion to have better stopping power, stronger frame, and better suspension.
7:41
Yan: That’s great. Some of that research had been done already?
7:47
Bill: Yeah, there’s Flying Miata, which does Miata stuff, and some crossover where you can get Miata parts to fit on the DeLorean.
7:58
Yan: For background, the car is built on an X-frame or Y-frame, right?
8:04
Bill: Yes.
8:12
Yan: You furnished your shop with a professional lift so you can work on the car as well?
8:18
Bill: Yeah, we moved from the two-car garage to a place with a shop in Ellensburg. I’ve got a large shop with a car lift, welders, drill presses, metalworking gear, everything you can imagine. It’s an amazing setup now.
8:44
Yan: If you check Bill’s YouTube videos, you’ll see how he also worked on the shop, which is impressive.
8:50
Yan: So, Bill, at some point, how did you decide what type of donor car would be the one for your retrofit?
8:58
Bill: When I bought the car, I knew I wanted to convert it. I made an Excel sheet listing every EV I could find, checking prices, battery capacity, motors, drivetrain (AWD, FWD, RWD).
9:27
I narrowed down what would fit the DeLorean. There’s no space up front for front-wheel drive, so AWD was out. The rear frame is limited in space to fit a transaxle or drive unit.
9:52
The Tesla large drive unit, common in EV conversions, was too big and wouldn’t fit.
9:58
I went through them one by one and chose the Chevrolet Bolt EV. It’s not sporty, but the original DeLorean had about 130 horsepower and a slow 0-60 time, over 10 seconds.
10:28
The Bolt does 0-60 in about 6.5 seconds, has significantly more horsepower, and a 66 kWh battery giving about 250 miles of range.
10:46
The ID4 was on the list too; specs are similar to the Bolt. The ID4 has a rear-wheel-drive version that would have been ideal, but I couldn’t find a salvage one in 2020.
11:19
Yan: Did you consider motors from NetGain or other EV shops?
11:26
Bill: Yes, I considered NetGain’s Hyper9 and their DC motor. I didn’t want a DC brush motor because I wanted regenerative braking with AC motors and a modern experience.
11:51
I ended up buying a full Chevy Bolt PSE and batteries, which was cheaper.
12:03
Yan: What was the auction price?
12:05
Bill: $99,000, so very cheap.
12:09
Yan: Was it wrecked?
12:15
Bill: Heavily. The body was wrecked, but you don’t need the body.
12:20
The battery and motor—best I can tell—the car was parked because there were no occupants and airbags didn’t deploy. The rear hatch was smashed, rear suspension destroyed and pushed forward, doors shoved in from impact.
12:54
The battery was dinged but not destroyed.
13:00
Yan: Have you heard about the Chevy Bolt battery recall?
13:08
Bill: Yes. I purchased the Bolt during the recall period. My battery was one of the highest risk, so I was fast-tracked for a new battery even though my vehicle was salvage.
13:27
I took it to a dealer completely smashed, and they replaced the battery.
13:37
Now I have a brand-new zero-mile battery and stripped everything from the Bolt — electrical harness, body control module, ECU — and melted it into the DeLorean.
14:05
Yan: You couldn’t have planned the battery replacement better.
14:11
Bill: I had no idea when I started. The Bolt had 65,000 miles in 2020, which isn’t high.
14:29
Yan: People love those Bolts. Shame Chevy isn’t selling them anymore.
14:36
Bill: Yeah.
14:38
Yan: Did you remove the transmission from the DeLorean and directly drive the wheels with the Bolt drive unit?
14:43
Bill: Yes, I removed the entire drivetrain. The DeLorean is rear-engine with a transaxle bolted on. Everything was removed, and the Bolt drive unit sits between the wheels.
14:57
It’s a transaxle that drives both wheels at the same time.
15:05
Yan: Did you have to fabricate axles?
15:05
Bill: Yes. The DeLorean uses axles from a Porsche model (I can’t remember the exact number), which are easy to manufacture.
15:18
Companies that make axles have those specs, so I sent them the Bolt CV shafts and they made axles to Porsche specs but with the correct length for my build.
15:41
Yan: That’s impressive.
15:46
Bill: It’s basically a stick with two ends to hold it in place.
15:53
Yan: I admired how you transferred the wiring harnesses and control units neatly into the car. That must have been monumental since you had to handle drivetrain, cooling, and electrical systems.
16:18
Bill: The great thing about the Bolt is it has a technical manual with every wire and connector labeled, so I could trace them in the car.
16:44
I used heat shrink tubing with label tape and a label maker. I spent $350 on label maker tape, but it pays off when debugging.
17:07
Yan: You were also designing and 3D printing parts, not just holders for control units, right?
17:14
Bill: Yes, here are some items. This is a switch cover for the power window switches, which are 40 years old.
17:26
I switched to modern-designed switches and made 3D printed parts to fit them in the DeLorean. I’ve designed and printed many parts.
17:44
Yan: Did you use the actual switches from the Bolt or aftermarket?
17:46
Bill: I used a different switch from a 2016 Buick LaCrosse, still GM, so compatible with the platform.
18:04
Yan: The Bolt switches are newer and more complex, with one panel and many buttons, so you found a smaller GM switch that fits better in the DeLorean.
and
18:17
went from there so I’m I’m guessing why Wes was asking about the windows switches because the id4 has one
Window Switches
18:24
interesting thing it has four windows but only two windows switch
18:29
oh interesting that’s a good word for it how do you control the ones in the rear well there’s yet another button oh okay
18:36
press you press the rear button which of course is a capacitor button that is in front of the switches so every time I go to put my front window down I
18:43
accidentally hit the rear capacitor button and then rear window down this is
18:48
right in my wheelhouse so literally for the last two months I’ve been working on the power windows uh power mirrors and
18:56
all that kind of stuff for the DeLorean and so this is this is an interesting place for the conversion right because
19:01
for most everything else I’m hooking up an ECU to an electric motor and those things know each other they know how to
19:07
talk to each other they they speak the same language because they were designed in the same car but the window switches in the DeLorean are in the center
19:13
console right whereas the window switches and the bolt are in the door and you have like one control on the
19:19
driver side for doing all the other windows in the car and right so I had to
19:25
make Windows switches from the DeLorean talk to the system for the bolt to tell
19:31
it to roll the windows up and down and do all that kind of stuff so this is the same for door locks as well so I
19:36
actually have it working now I can use the key fob from the bolt and like if you hold the button down it will roll
19:42
the windows down and all the windows roll down uh you know as expected and you can unlock and lock and do all that
19:47
kind of stuff so this is this is right in my wheelhouse ripping out all the old
19:52
electronics or I guess new electronics soldering things very small wires into
19:57
those um I made relay boards and so I’m doing custom PCB boards and having those manufactured and soldering on relays and
20:04
yeah that’s incredible sorry so but do you know how to do your own board design or do you have people helping you with
20:09
that yeah I do everything myself uh luckily I’ve got an Electronics um background I’ll say background because
20:15
I’ve been ripping things apart since I was about 10 years old yeah that’s a great skill I’ve got a local engineer
20:21
that does those things but uh I’ve uh I can do some of the programming on it and I can sort of look at the circuit but I
20:28
can’t tell you like where where a voltage regulator needs to go or how to that this is just yeah I definitely get
20:34
a lot from the internet Yeah well yeah don’t we all same for us we have some
Trunk Switch
20:39
fun projects with West that we’ll tell you all about after sometimes so maybe when we have a chance to grab a beer or
20:45
virtual beer together um I fly out there there’s less misinformation in the uh circuit board manufacturing information
20:52
on the internet it seems like and you don’t have to worry as much about being led astray I don’t know sometimes you can
20:58
tell somebody that really I was reading something in one of the electric vehicle U for my wife has a Mach One of the
21:03
Mustangs I got one and uh well there’s this great thing where they’re talking about modding the adding a trunk switch
21:10
um a hatch switch that uh normally you do it on the screen but they have the Ford Escape and the Ford Explorer and
21:17
maybe the a couple others have the same console in this modular the the headlight switch you can literally uncp
21:24
the the max defrost module and clip on put a button in there yeah and you can got a box of them right here I could
21:30
well it’s kind of off topic but but I bought several to mess around with it and um the long and short of it though
21:35
somebody was like oh yeah you can just it’s got the connector on the back you can just take the wire strip it fold it over and shove it into the back of the
21:42
of the housing and I was like no don’t don’t I’m not an engineer but you know
21:47
that’s just asking to come loose and short somewhere yeah and um all it does is it shorts that to ground to open the
21:53
the trunk but it’s I found the repair wire number was like buy this wire stick it in and then use a crimp a butt crimp
22:00
you know yeah and and people just do crazy things uh but you know I I can crimp things and I can plug things in
22:05
but when you’re talking about custom welding and fabricating pcbs and things like that um I’m very jealous of both of
22:11
you gentlemen that’s that’s that’s a great I have a very understanding wife and also no children so I have ample
22:18
free time to work on this kind of stuff and so Wes by the way if you want to uh I I think that was a beautiful welding job that that you did Bill uh when you
22:25
added a snow cloud to your uh uh for lightning right that was that’s amazing
22:33
yeah as far as I know I have the I don’t know if I sell the only one but I certainly have the very first F-150
22:39
Lightning Electric truck that is you know got a full snowplow on it so I can sit in the cab and it moves left and
22:45
right and up and down and uh can can plow the streets up here yeah that’s interessting people are
Plowing
22:51
gonna learn what these electric trucks can do they are fantastic for plowing yeah they’re heavier than a regular F150
22:59
and so the extra weight helps when you’re pushing snow bet all-wheel drive um they’re they’re quiet so you don’t
23:05
have all the fumes and noise and all that kind of stuff you’re just the only thing you hear is the scraping of the
23:10
snow going you know going away it is it is such a nice experience and very different experience right like no
23:16
diesel engine kind of exactly like rumbling in the seat yeah and I love diesel engines but you know the I loved
23:22
it better when we have uh I told Yan in our first conversation we uh we have local biodiesel plant that uh that made
23:28
bio for a long time here are they paying out l no no yeah no they should well no
23:34
the one that was here is not but the there’s a new local one that that bought the customers from the old plant and
23:39
well bought a strong word it’s it’s more of a co-op than anything else but he goes and collects oil from restaurants and makes the here but um the electric
23:47
it’s funny people want to trash the truck because of the towing range and I think a lot of people don’t really pay attention to what what Towing in a
23:53
diesel or gas truck does to your range and then the other part of the equation is how often are are you towing your
23:59
most people are Towing their boat to the lake or something you’re not Towing at 400 miles or and if you are then maybe
24:04
you just need a you know a diesel truck but yeah but most people that would have one it’s like you’re using your truck to
24:09
commute 99% of the time yep and then when you want to tow your boat to the lake that’s 30 miles away or 10 miles
24:15
away and um yeah a good friend of mine owns a solar u manufactur a solar uh
24:20
maintenance company and he bought a lightning and really loves it and his wife got 94 so uh We’ve uh you know but
24:27
for his job he drives that thing to work and uh they’re they’re pulling stuff and Hauling stuff and being able to power
24:33
240 volt tools and oh yeah right out of the bed uh you know I’ve done concrete work and I’m you know working down the
24:39
street uh putting in a new uh mailbox basically right for the community and being able to just plug in an electric
24:46
concrete mixer right at the back of the truck right like it was amazing and no no diesel fumes you’re not listening to
24:52
the the exhaust you know it’s going the whole time you’re just mix oh like everything about the truck I I I have
24:58
absolutely love I’m not a big truck guy but out here in Ellensburg uh we have a lot of uses for for trucks out here put
25:05
it to use and you probably have even a lot of sun hours right do you have a solar or are you thinking about solar I
Solar
25:11
have a very very large solar system oh wow okay yeah I have uh 37 kilowatts of
25:17
solar um it is it’s a ground array 110 feet wide uh by about 11 feet tall so um
25:26
we generate um on a on a bright sunny day 250 kilowatt hours in one day which
25:33
is enough to power about 10 homes for a 24 hour period are you able to resell
25:38
all that or you having to store it to use it yeah we it goes right into the grid and we get paid for it you’re getting paid wholesale uh yeah we’re
25:44
getting the wholesale rate out here so they just in North Carolina they just changed the regulations last year uh to
25:51
where you no longer they used to used to get net metering so B offset which is the same as getting retail rates right
25:56
you’re offsetting but they would only up to a certain point but I think the upside is if you now that you get paid
26:03
wholesale I think you can install as large of an array as you want and and you can sell all of that to the grid um
26:09
of course with that rate I would want to store as much as I could and use it myself y I’m just waiting for battery
26:15
prices to drop actually you know it’s it’s the inverter prices that are really expensive because these days you can get batteries for pretty cheap you know
26:21
you’re getting in the $100 per kilowatt hour range now for batteries um but those inverters if you want an inverter
26:26
that’s big enough to run your whole house I mean you’re still talking you know five $10,000 for that kind of yeah $5,000 for a five kilowatt one yeah or
26:33
something like that yeah so uh yeah that’s that’s a shame but you can always get the batteries by just buying a a
26:40
bolted auction right that’s right that’s honestly like I I expect to do that when the time comes um especially a lot of
26:46
cars have lfp batteries now which are really fantastic I was gonna say for for
26:51
fixed storage you want lfp right you don’t want the okay and if you got a car and it’s got you know 100 kilowatt hour
26:57
battery pack in it or something uh that’ll run your house for you know easily like half a week if not a week um
27:06
yeah depending on I guess appliances right if you’ve got a if you’re running your oven a lot or you’ve got a so we
Heat Pump
27:11
just bought a heat pump water heater it’s not doing very well no that’s because it’s in the
27:17
garage not plugged into anything oh okay well that’s maybe the problem right it’s like it’s like having a weight a weight
27:22
rack in your garage right it doesn’t help just if you got clothes hanging on no it’s a it’s a heat pump water heater
27:28
and an 80 gallon one that I got damaged so I hope it works when I plug it in but uh they’re they’re very expensive to the
27:34
point where it all you wouldn’t think it would make sense to make it work but you you save something like $50 a month in
27:42
energy cost it’s enough to pay for itself in a pretty short period of time yep and they make heat pump clothes dryers but they’re so expensive and it
27:48
saves $3 a month it would take forever to make back the the money so that’s the only gas Appliance I have is a is a
27:54
closed dryer but everything else is electric and so imagine if you’re running normal when your electric
27:59
resistive water heater kicks on it pulls 5 kilowatts oh yeah um and so you know
28:04
that that’ll eat through your battery pretty quick if it’s running you know if you got teenagers taking 15 20 minute
28:10
showers um or filling up the bathtub but uh but yeah I think for most people I
28:15
think that’s why people are so excited um you know for the the F-150 Lightning’s uh vehicle to load or
28:21
vehicle to home capability and what’s supposed to come possibly maybe to our ID 4S um at least vehic to load where
28:29
you can use that as a backup battery is there a lot of modding around doing vehicle to grid so in the bolt EV what a
28:37
lot of people do is they’ll run the 12volt system um and then they just run that through an inverter and then they
28:42
can power their house or whatever off of that mhm we we didn’t explore this enough I I feel but uh but allegedly the
DeLorean Super Project
28:50
the hardware that is in our cars can do that but uh the problematic uh portion
28:56
is the software that doesn’t software got to unlock for now yeah exactly we’re working on it yeah we
29:01
working on it yeah exactly so uh bill um back to your DeLorean super project uh what did the the DeLorean Community say
29:08
about that because I can imagine like there’s so many passionate people in the DeLorean Community yeah so the
29:14
interesting thing is there are probably 20 other electric DeLorean out there so
29:19
mine is not the first it’s the first to use the bolt um and it’s uh you know like they’re they’re I would say that I
29:26
have maybe one of the longer range ones or at least did uh I think somebody’s got like a 100 kilowatt hour one with a
29:31
Tesla uh packs in it now maybe but uh yeah so for a while I might have had
29:37
some some World Records there um but yeah The Deloreans going electric have are pretty popular um I will definitely
29:44
say that there are some in the community who only respect things that are stock
29:49
so they they don’t like oh you’re tearing up the car you’re ruining it and all that kind of stuff so I try to wear
29:55
the you know ruining it as a badge of of respect well Yan and I I think are more like we
30:01
want it to look stock but not it doesn’t need to be stock right it wants to yeah
30:06
if you look at my car you you could have no idea that it’s electric um from the outside there’s no difference whatsoever that’s great that’s awesome yeah so what
Tesla Batteries
30:12
are people are so the Tesla batteries people are buying are those things are they more they better from an energy
30:18
density standpoint or they the same they’re the same nmc chemistry that everything else you know it used to be
30:23
that the Tesla packs were way Superior to anything else uh but I think nowadays if you’re going for a modern one they’re
30:29
pretty much in line however there are certain features that the Tesla packs have that make them like very nice and I
30:34
say this as someone who’s not I don’t own a Tesla and I don’t have I didn’t use Tesla Parts in my conversion but
30:40
having the batteries with integrated cooling tubes where you just plug Cooling in and like you that is super
30:46
super handy um they yeah so there’s a lot of other advantages to them the BMS it’s hard to argue with the engineering
30:52
job that they’ve done absolutely I’m sorry I interrupted you you’re saying the bms’s are pretty great as well yeah so there’s like an integ BMS in each one
30:59
of the packs each one of the modules and then you have a a board that you can
31:04
just plug in you you replace the the BMS board that’s on it with your own and then you can plug that into your own
31:10
monitoring system and that kind of thing it seems very easy to use and there’s just really good I would say community
31:15
support uh if you’re using Tesla modules this a question I had for you that well I didn’t have for you until just now but
DIY BMS
31:20
it’s a question I had the bms’s don’t don’t generally speak the same language right I mean you are they mostly on the
31:27
Spy bus or do they do speak the same way I mean they do not as far as I’m aware none of the bms’s interact with each
31:32
other in any positive way you need to write custom code in order to if you have your own BM have you looked at DIY
31:39
BMS have you seen that I have and so this is a guy that that’s got a GitHub page where he’s published I wish I could
31:44
say his name on the podcast the uh you know he’s got board schematics and a bomb a bill materials and everything and
31:50
you can go to your favorite Boardhouse we used Batel in Canada before and in New York and they uh you can make these
31:57
boards in Quant and do them for your friends if you want but uh literally make your own BMS and I think they
32:03
communicate they can communicate on spy or on rs232 RS 4
32:08
435 I’m getting over I’m out of my depth here but so you used a you popped off
32:13
the Tesla BMS and plug well if you were to do the Tesla you would pop off that and do your own and yeah and in the Bold
32:19
conversion what I did is they have a they have a BMS normally it’s within the battery pack itself and it’s just got I
32:24
mean there’s 98 cell groups in the battery pack so you got a box and it’s got 998 wires right that go to each one
32:31
of the uh individual battery uh cells within the pack uh and so I have to do
32:36
that since I split my battery into multiple like packs within the car I’ve got like you know an orange uh tube that
32:44
runs down the length of it and within that tube is 100 wires uh that connects from the rear to the front and the BMS
32:51
is kind of in the middle of the car so so you have uh so the in the bolt the battery was like a skateboard underneath
32:57
the car right and so you had to open it and put some ofes to the front and some to the back right y exactly for space
33:04
constraints and probably for weight distrib yes exactly uh so the weight of the of the car I mean most of is in a
33:10
batteries for an Eevee right and so the pack in the bolt I think it’s about a thousand pounds uh and so I split it up
33:17
into basically two sections a front half and a back half half of it is under the hood and half of it is in the rear where
33:23
the engine used to be so you don’t have any Hood space anymore any trunk space but you’ve got
33:29
not much I mean that’s not why you you’re not taking this thing on road
33:34
trips so I did maintain it internally like if you’re in the car there’s like a rear they call it the parcel shelf you
33:40
know it’s large enough for a golf bag um so I maintained that so if I if I to a
33:46
lot of folf okay yeah that’s great that’s great that’s um but uh you know that was the thing just because Jan and
How many modules
33:53
uh Yan more so than me have been diving into how just how many modules there are in these modern cars
33:58
how many did you have to keep how many did you try to keep as few as possible just the engine controller and the
34:03
coolant and the battery monitoring how did you decide what to do and how many did you keep so when I went into the
34:08
conversion I decided like from the beginning that I wanted it to be a full like donor experience so I wanted to
34:15
take absolutely everything that I could out of the bolt and put it into the DeLorean if I were to try to remove the
34:21
any cells or modules from it then the BMS wouldn’t know how to talk to it it’s it’s expecting a certain number of cells
34:28
in there uh so GNA ask that question too that’s good yeah so it’s every one of them uh there are 10 modules in the bolt
34:34
uh interestingly there’s probably a way that I could make it smaller um because the the battery is broken up into okay
34:41
so uh the way that you make a battery pack you start off with cells right like if you got like a double a size battery
34:47
or something like that and then you take a handful of those and you put them in parallel right and that gives you a cell
34:52
group and then you take a whole bunch of those and you put those in series so it adds up the voltage and so at the end of
34:58
the day you’ve got a combination of parallel cells and series cells to end up with a 400 volt pack that might have
35:07
you know I think some of the Teslas have like 20 cells or something like that in parallel as well so in the bolt uh there
35:14
are three cells these are pouch cells so they’re about like this size and they’re they’re flat cells same as we have in
35:19
id4 or similar Des LG can I have has SK
35:25
or different brand yeah mine’s LG as well so they take three of those and they weld those together in parallel and then
35:32
they take 96 of those cell groups and put those into the the full pack that
35:38
gives you 400 volts so if I wanted to I could potentially have taken those cell groups and broken them and so basically
35:44
if I went to a 1p 96s battery um it would be a third the capacity so 22
35:50
kilowatt hours uh but would have the same voltage and then it would probably also work with the bmms it might throw
35:56
errors though because the capacity would be a third of what what it’s expecting but somebody with a smaller car that wanted to use a bolt for a donor that
36:02
would be a good uh yeah they could definitely do that way to do that it’s a lot of work though I’ll be honest oh no kidding you have to write software
36:09
that’s what I was wondering how many is how the you’re not having errors thrown up all the time because you use most of the modules I mean I do have some errors
36:15
throwing for things that I just haven’t hooked up yet uh like my you know like the hood a jar sensor I don’t have
36:20
hooked up yet so so that kind of gets thrown um and there’s some various other things yeah all the things that I have
36:26
that I haven’t hooked up yet they throw erors but none of them prevent the car from driving so Bill what you know when a door you know when a door is not a
36:33
door right it’s when it’s a jar Wing a
36:39
jar so what was the first ride that you uh took with with your car uh when it so
First ride
36:45
when it was gas or when it was when it was converted uh so when it was converted was a year and a half ago I
36:52
think uh that sounds about right um it was in the winter time so it was in like
36:57
January it had freshly snowed when I finally got it working because of course
37:03
I’m not very good at uh time management when it comes to building cars because it’s a very new thing for me I wanted to
37:08
have it done while it was still like nice out but I didn’t make it there uh and so it was very snowy and uh foggy
37:15
day when I finally got the car running for the first time uh but it’s you know I haven’t been stranded by it once so
37:22
it’s yeah been pretty reliable and I mean that’s what any any one of us would have done was as soon as you get the car
37:27
working you just you have to try it even if it’s midnight like you have to try it
37:32
right and just out of curiosity if you would um kind of look back and think
What would you do differently
37:38
about okay so maybe this decision was great this Choice wasn’t that great like you learned a to like is it are you
37:44
documenting it are you thinking about sharing this with the community and and what would be the the number one thing
37:49
that you would maybe do differently uh I I will definitely say that if I do another EV conversion I am not going to
37:55
do this whole donor situation oh uh and and it’s because it’s frustrating
38:00
dealing with the bolt EV when I like I’m a software engineer like I should I want to write the software I want to go in I
38:06
want to tweak values and Fiddle around with stuff and while it’s nice that I didn’t have to do that to like get the
38:12
car running and driving and you know that sort of stuff now that I don’t have it I’m kind of locked in and it’s and
38:18
it’s kind of frustrating um so I kinda like if I do it again I will probably go the route of taking a Tesla Drive Unit
38:26
putting that in with its inverter or whatever you know how whatever Drive Unit I can find okay okay and then
38:34
finding a different set of batteries and putting those in so I’ll do a more uh peac meal approach if I do it again uh
38:39
which I think the next one is going to be a Nash Metropolitan uh might be the next vehicle I’ve also talked about a
38:45
Carmen Gia um yeah well carmenia that’s that’s for sure on on West list and on
38:52
my list is either gold Mark 1 or a 9 911 uh some like older 80 oh ni I think so
39:00
that’s amazing it’s basically just a car Gia so I I don’t know if we said this earlier but I have a 68 Gia u in my
Should you replace the starter motor
39:06
driveway and in North Carolina you’re allowed to run a 1968 license plate as long as you keep the real license plate
39:11
you know in your glove box in case you get pulled over or for you inevitably get pulled over um but yeah you know
39:17
it’s the starter motor smoked and I kind of I’m like do I really want to replace the starter motor or is it time to just
39:23
go ahead and and do this conversion yeah and uh you know so I was looking at places like I don’t know if you’ve heard
39:29
of e West oh yeah um but uh they seem like one of the more reputable places but they have a full-blown kit I mean as
39:36
far as far down as to having a a a j1772 adapter that goes in your fuel cap right
39:43
you already designed and all that kind of stuff yeah absolutely I mean you leave your factory transmission or you
39:48
can replace it with one that doesn’t have a reverse gear and just has two gears you know like the highway speed
39:53
gear and the I guess the second or third gear and you just bolt this adapter plate right up to the Bell hasing your
40:00
transmission yeah and it’s really I mean somebody that’s that’s what somebody like me needs I don’t how a weld but I
40:07
can put things together by golly right and umen so what you think you would uh
40:12
you would do something like that where you would buy you probably wouldn’t buy a kit you want to ride software you yeah I probably wouldn’t buy a kit but maybe
40:19
it depends if there’s already one out there like the time that I’ve had to spend in engineering and designing and
40:24
Fabrication and all that kind of stuff right no matter how expensive the kit is it’s probably worth
40:30
it yeah right of course I mean you don’t want to you don’t you should never do the calculation of of what time you
40:36
spent just don’t oh yeah the thing so I try to push myself to work in the shop
40:42
for at least an hour every day after work and then on the weekends I’m usually in there for you know a few more
40:47
hours on top of that and so if you try to go up and add the hours over the last four years that I’ve been working on it
40:53
at least an hour a day I mean it’s just thousands of hours and right but it’s countless uh payoff and what
41:00
you’ve learned and then what you the the the gratification you feel when you finish the job right now it works and
41:06
it’s that’s what a lot of people I think don’t understand anybody Pride an accomplishment I believe exactly exactly
41:12
but but I think you’re right I mean if you can you don’t need to fabricate a clutch adapter plate if there’s one that’s pril for the motor that you’re G
41:18
to use skip it skip anything you can because I I promise you there’s going to be enough there yeah so that’s really
41:24
great I mean I would love to if you want to fly out here I no we got lots of great micr breweries here and I can’t
41:33
can’t pay you anything but uh yeah this this guia is H
41:39
something that’s begging to be driven around there you go and that’s the only time I’ve ever had somebody look at me and give me a thumbs up it’s probably the feeling you get with your with your
41:45
DeLorean is when I was driving the geia around town and you know some 19y old kid is like yes yeah and uh no they’re
41:52
nice looking I actually just saw one on the road last week you don’t see those very frequent quently and it was yeah it
41:58
was odd to see one uh and it’s like oh yeah what’s good I was reading U some
42:03
blog I don’t remember where it it was an article in the maybe New Yorker or something like that and this this German
42:08
guy was talking about how when he was a teenager and first time he saw a Gia and he loved it and his dad was like damond
42:14
sportswagon you know which is like women’s sports car right that this for girls you know which
42:21
might have been true at the time but now you know men my age are like I want one of those yeah and I think they look
42:27
great I love you know the the kmen design right wasn’t he designing he’s the Italian designer I guess uh I’m
42:35
actually not sure who designed that one I’m not sure either I can’t remember if Gia is the
42:40
yeah the name of the think car is a design could be a homework for all of us and you all as well um so I think we
42:48
have uh time for last question for Bill uh and we’ll wrap up the uh discussion
42:53
for today all right so Bill so bill
42:59
um what is the next big project you mentioned of course Delan is now done
Will you do another EV conversion
43:06
and you’re thinking about few few few few cars like is would you do this again
43:12
oh absolutely yeah so I’m definitely going to do another EV conversion just kind of depends uh what comes my way um
43:18
I’ve got some stuff I’m still wrapping up a lot of stuff in the car I need uh I want to get fast charging I want to do
43:24
DC fast charging in the car and it doesn’t in order to support that I need to do
43:29
full AC system so sort of um I’m trying to do double duty right now in my my
43:34
learning uh so I’m going to be putting an AC system in the shop so that way I can buy all the tools know how to do AC
43:41
systems and then I’m going to do that in the car so hopefully I can um yeah that
43:46
way the batteries get nice and cooled and I can do charging I should be able to use Tesla superchargers on the bolt now um yeah so that’s probably the next
43:54
thing on the list in in the short I wish all you had to do was just plug one of these in right I’ve got the switch
43:59
Yeah plug it in there you go there you
44:05
go so Bill thank you thank you thank you so very much we are so grateful that you shared your experiences and Ann notes
44:12
with everybody on this podcast uh we’ll be thrilled to have you sometimes in the future maybe when you do the fast
44:19
charging on uh Tesla Supercharger or some some other breakthrough that you’ll go through uh thank you so much for
44:26
joining though much yeah thank you super fun so interesting yeah thanks so bu all
44:32
right that would be it for the vwi Talk podcast today with a special guest uh
44:37
Bill Carlson make sure you follow him on YouTube he documented everything in in
44:44
video so you can literally um look at all what we’ve talked today you can make
44:49
it real uh for you to today now and of course uh continue in the great
44:54
discussion about driving electric at vwi id.com come uh and see you next time
44:59
thank you bye
