Chevy Volt battery upgrade for S-10 EV
 

I realize an automobile is not anything related to home energy conservation but an electric vehicle can certainly help the bottom line when it comes to expenses. It can be looked at as low hanging fruit as the cost of energy to power an electric vehicle is a lot less than to power the fossil fuel machine to operate. For us the cost of gasoline per year is the next largest cost. We wrestled the monster down regarding home heating and lighting with Solar Hot-water space heating with Geo-thermal back-up, LED lighting and with more efficient appliances.

With my shop the same has held true Geo-thermal and more efficient lighting. A little more insulation and the later model CNC machines are extremely efficient.

If any have been following my adventures with the Chevy S-10 EV it is now operational with 16 yr old Nimh battery tech. The older pack proved our new custom AC inverter drive system however battery voltage sag under load is a detractor from the capabilities.

I had mention on the electric vehicle post that I was quite surprised after a charge that the truck actually spun tires on dry pavement from which the batteries voltage lowered (voltage sag) quickly.

The now hot rod S-10 needs some good batteries.

1st thought: Tesla batteries, but they seem to be almost un-obtainium

More readily available Chevy volt pack.

I found 2 so about 34 Kwh together. Removed the old Nimh and have repurposed these for the house. This will be another chapter to be caught up with later.

The 2 chevy volt Lithium packs are now reconfigured to be placed in the OEM battery box that is positioned between the frame rails of the truck. However about 4 kwhs remaining are left to be placed in another box behind the rear axle.

Things are going to be exciting with some batteries that will have very little voltage sag and possibly enough range for 120 miles.


Randen


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Are you going to do any thermal management with the batteries?

DEnd

Thermal management, you bet. The information I have is, heat during discharge may not be an issue and the same for charging at the nominal rate. However charging with a battery temp. of 0 Deg. C. or less can cause damage so a little warm coolant circulated though the batteries will be welcomed in my Canadian climate.

Randen

I've seen cooling/heating lifespan charts on these LG batteries. Looks like 5C to 35C is the window. So heating in our climate is very much required.

Very cool project.
Have you got to test how many miles you can get so far?

Pinballooking

Well I easily was traveling 10-15Km. I wasn't fully charging the pack as I was still setting the parameters for the motor. The total range would only be a guess. As I was setting the parameters under full load the pack voltage was sagging with a current draw of about 400A.

The original pack of Nimh still has some life and it is now residing at my home to be coupled to a solar panel array. It may be just fine there as I doubt I'll ever see that kind of current draw.

For the truck I didn't want to waste any time on older tech. The voltage sag could be as simple as corroded battery straps but the other side is the Nimh is only about 66 % efficient so for every 1 kwh I put in I would only get 660 wh out. I can't remember exactly but the lithium in the Chev Volt is in the 90% range. The performance far exceeds the Nimh as far as the discharge curve.

The little S-10 may not be a Tesla but I'm impressed with the acceleration with poor batteries. What will it be like with higher current on tap----we'll know soon.

Randen

Just guessing , but I figure internal resistance limits discharge current , to some degree ?

As a side note , I am again guessing that the more efficent the battery , the less heat , potentially ?

God bless
Wyr

I thought I would give a follow-up.

The S-10EV is on the road and is driving wonderfully. The Chevy Volt battery packs are providing great performance for this little truck. I still have some tuning for the motor inverter adjusting waveforms.

Top speed is 135 kmh, and range is around 160 kms both which could improve.

The project was a lot of work but the ends justified the means.

Yet to do is some instrumentation and getting the air-conditioning functioning.

Randen

Huzzah! Huzzah! Huzzah!

Congratulations Randen.

:-)

About how much $$$ do you have in the conversion ?

If I am not mistaken , the GM battery is liquid cooles / heated . Have you maintained that feature .

The Leaf battery is air cooled / electric heated ( apparently not as well ) and suffers faster battery degrading than the GM battery .

God bless
Wyr

Wyrtwister

The truck cost me $6k and batteries $3.4k and all the incidentals I really never kept track. I went through a few IGBT moduals and though a few circuit board re-builds maybe another $3K.
A new Chevy Volt charger. Some body work to remove a big ding in the box.

When I get on a project like this I don't quit because that would mean every cent that I have invested to that point is wasted. Not to mention the time!!!

I could have bought a Nissan Leaf for less but I needed a small truck for my work. I really didn't think it was going to take me this long to get it operational. Although I think I have beat the leaf with performance!!

Would I do it again?? HMM with the experience I have now, it gets you thinking. I know where there is one sitting in a field. It is a really nice little truck. Hmm a little truck or infact a larger with Tesla stuff. Oh but Tesla has said they maybe manufacturing a pick-up truck in 2020. It may take me longer!!!???

The batteries don't warm much in operation or in charging and I'm drawing current from two packs so even less energy wasted in heat. The problem is charging cold batteries for the Chevy Volt Lithium maganese chemistry is a huge deal. The batteries are NEVER to be charged below 0 Deg.C. So the remedy is warming with circulating heated coolant through the cells before starting the charge. Its simple enough, just like an old block heater.!!

At this moment I don't have that equipment connected but it was in the plan and all the pieces are there. I just didn't want to deal with all that slippery antifreeze mess incase I needed to pull it all apart.

There is a lot of expert advice out there about the battery degradation for so many reasons. I don't pay any attention to that unless is credible first hand knowledge. There are a lot of individuals out there just typing themselves smart!!!

Randen

Our Leaf was a 2012 with about 34000 miles . Battery degrading had dropper 2 or 3 steps , so it is a real thing with a Leaf , especially in southern / hot climates .

I read the GM batteries , being liquid cooled , in stead of air cooled , suffer from battery degrading , to a much smaller extent .

As far as heat , depending on the charge rate , you may see more heat while charging , than driving . Especially if you are light footed .

So , you may wish to think about restoring the liquid battery management , at some point in time .

I think the Volt did heat the liquid in the winter , to get better battery performance .

Best of luck . :-) Please keep us informed .

God bless
Wyr

A little more information. I went to the scrapyard yesterday and had the truck weighed out.
The original weight with the Lead acid battery pack was 4230 Lbs. The trucks curb weight now is 3880 Lbs.

So an increase in payload envelope of 450 Lbs. by getting the lead out. The ride of course is a little firmer but nice and the handling quite nice with a better distribution of weight. The front of the truck doesn't bob and weave with that cast iron between the front wheels.

One bad behaviour of the truck is being front wheel drive with no active torque balancing transaxle "torque steer" With all that torque available on the over exuberant application of accelerator peddle one front tire will decide who will slip and the other make traction resulting in the truck pulling slightly one way or the other. And of course with the classic tire squeal.

It is noted the original control had derated the out-put from the inverter which would have moderated the acceleration and more to not stress the lead acid pack.

I should limit that output as well to not get into any trouble. It is nice to show that the little electric truck is not what you would expect.!

Randen

Dang it now I'm almost jealous. I want an electric truck with about a 150 mile range. Yours is so close...

Its been 3 weeks and I've been driving the wheels off the truck. Its performing so well. Its made many trips to my customers dropping the work off. Many errands made to pick up materials and trips to the scrap yard with all the machine turnings.

I had made a trip to the airport and its about a 50 min. ride. Cruising there at highway speeds so smooth and quiet. The acceleration is so brisk and the handling with the lower centre of gravity, making it so nice to drive. I'm thinking to myself "what was GM thinking crushing this technology?"

Gotta get those solar panels up!!!

Randen

Very cool project.
What is your range?

An easy 100 miles at highway speeds. Pluging the truck in after every day of use, recharging so its always full is really great. With my ICE truck it seamed always needing to stop at the gasoline station and spend 5-10 mins. there loading with gas. What a pain!!

The truck is going to a car show this weekend as it very unique being a OEM electric truck which is 20 Years Old!!! It still looks all original as all the new circuits are within the OEM housings.


Randen

They had no choice: it was an experiment, and the whole ev program became a political lightning rod. Watch "Who killed the electric car", that movie explains it pretty well. The cars themselves were splendid, as is the S-10 you have. When the "test driver" surveys started coming back roses and rainbows, the powers that be took notice and began slashing and burning.

That's why I drive a Saturn S-series. GM had to do something with the EV-1 chassis, so they built the original SL/SC cars. They are the original GM hybrid: they burn gas and oil!
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The EV-1
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2000 SC
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1998 SC

I have had 4 of them, and the one I own now is the only one that ever let me down. I bought it knowing the engine was somewhat weak though. It drove just fine for a year doing highway commute duty, then when I switched to local stop-and-go driving, it developed a head gasket leak. Turns out the previous owner tried being a mechanic, and cracked a piston crown putting the engine back together. The stoplights and rapid heat cycling eventually turned the crack into a chip. So, not the car's fault.

To get the car back on the road quick, I found a junkyard motor locally for $400 and did a motor swap. I haven't done an autopsy on the bottom end yet, but from above it looks like previous owner tried a quickie cylinder hone and maybe re-ring. Head looks great, and I expect the bottom end to be similar. However, having the block bored and all the associated parts needed to renew the engine will definitely cost more than $400, so I might not mess with it.

The car is already saving me 10 miles per dollar of gas over the C1500 I've been driving while the Saturn was down. It really feels good not to have to stop and fill up every day! I wish I could find an S10 EV, I would drive that sucker every day, and never stop at a gas station with it!

Jeff5may

Yep seen "Who Killed The Electric Car" and the sequel "The Revenge of the Electric Car" and I'm well aware of all the conspiracy angles. But you would think a large corporation such as GM with all their highest paid, best educated with the greatest minds in business gathered around the board room table would maybe think "hey we might be on to something" only to claim bankruptcy a few years latter.

Randen

Fellow Ecorenovators

The EV grin is firmly affixed. The truck is operating very well. The warm weather is here and the car show season has begun. The truck made its first appearance to a large show and the common response was "I didn't know Chevy ever made an electric truck" and then the usual questions:"how far, how long to charge, How much to operate"

Yet is to finish and connect the solar pergola, Too many projects.!

Saving lots of bucks even though. Gasoline here in Canada still quite pricey at about $4.00/USGAL

Randen

" Standard " unleaded is about $ 2.00 a gallon ( including all the taxes ) here in the south central USA .

When we had the Nissan Leaf , I guessed it was saving about 50% compared to our Chevy Sonic ( 24 City / 34 Highway ) . Which was nice , but not a huge amount of money .

Appreciate the report and have fun ! :-)

God bless
Wyr

The warm weather has been here for a number of weeks. The Chevy S-10 EV has factory air (3ph compressor) however that was powered by an inverter that was part of the DC-DC converter. The DC-DC was the original problem and I had replaced it with an off the shelf unit. So there went the CAN signal that reported everything was fine and one could drive away. That wasn't the case with the off the shelf unit.

So with some help made our own traction motor inverter drive. And I've been having a blast driving this thing around. However I've been missing the air conditioner.

Today I'm removing the traction motor inverter to access the inverter drive for the air conditioner. Supply the signal wires and we should have air-conditioning.

Riding in-style, on electrons soon to be a product from the pergola at the house.

Randen

Driving on sunshine
 

The pergola is erected and some experimentation has been made. I'm getting very close to making a connection to the home and it will be an off grid system with grid only as back-up.

It will be very nice to drive by the gas-station knowing your driving on sunshine and the house you will be retuning to will be cooled by the same sunshine.

Randen

Dredging up an old thread...
Raden,

Would you mind sharing any of the information about the controller you used? Was it homegrown or did you use one of the available kits (huebner or paul and sabrina)? What motor do you have in the S10?

I picked up one of the Hughes 50 KW 3-Phase AC in an auction and am interested in coming up with a controller for it.

I'd appreciate any info you could share.

Thanks,
Mike

Mab

I used the kit from Hübner however the IGBT drive circuit did not perform well and took out some IGBTs so we made our own drives. The processor is very well done but I don’t know if Johannes has improved the drivers but you should check with him

My abilities in electronics is novice and I needed a lot of help from a person with more advanced skills

Even though we made a lot of smoke and shoveled a lot of silicon at the project

If you lack the talent I would caution the attempt

Did the Hughes not use two of those motors for their S10???

The S10 that I have is the OEM production of GM with an 85 kw motor and a lot of other trick things that one would need

Randen

Raden,

As far as I know, there was only one Hughes in the S10. I haven't actually seen one in the truck though.

Thanks for the information on the huebner kit. I'll check with him.

Thanks,
Mike