Making an all-wheel drive "sleeper" LEAF

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JohnOver

Well-known member
Joined
Jun 25, 2011
Messages
144
Location
Santa Cruz Mountains near Hwy 17 & Summit Rd
I have this crazy idea that I wanted to throw out for discussion:

What about taking the drive train of a wrecked LEAF and fitting it in place of the rear wheels? You would have a car with just a little more weight, but twice the power. It seems like we would have to develop a CAN-bus gateway that listened to the front-wheel's CAN traffic and passed it to the rear-wheel's CAN bus, so that the "throttle" position would be transmitted to both front and rear inverters. That way they would work together accelerating or decelerating.

Sure the battery would last half as long, but it would be twice as fast... :eek:

What do you think?
 
Not so crazy. I've often thought about the same - after the warranty expires :). I was thinking a pair of these (one for each rear wheel) with a dedicated 72V battery pack in the trunk wouldn't be too expensive or difficult to engineer. Each can do bursts of 23kW (up to 60 seconds) resulting in a 50% increase in hp.
 
How about 2 hub motors on the rear axle ?
http://kellycontroller.com/car-hub-motor-72v-7kw-p-465.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

You could then have a rear wheel drive leaf until the aux. battery pack runs down, then switch to FWD for remaining distance. A 72 volt pack of Lithiums in the back seat area or even on a small trailer would work.
 
Actually, 72 volts wouldn't be that useful. You'd need a much higher voltage.

Here's probably the easiest way to handle this situation. Get a used Prius battery pack. They have around 200 volts and are designed to handle short bursts of power. Now, since this modification would only exist for the purpose of extra acceleration, you wouldn't need to worry about much in regards to integration. You'd need a motor controller tapped into the accelerator pedal. You'd probably want to configure it so that it does not do anything unless the pedal is mashed all the way to the floor, or really close. So the rear wheels would remain inactive unless hard acceleration is called upon. If you wanted to get really sophisticated, you could have the rear battery pack recharge slowly from the Leaf's main system (either the 12V or the HV) during times when it is not being used.

Now, as far as how to attach motor(s) to the rear wheels.. that would be the most difficult part.
 
It would be easier to buy a different EV if you want more power. The amount of time and money involved to execute this properly would be silly for the return. Just mod the inverter and put more power to the motor. Regardless the pack is not cooled to handle large kw draws. Adding motors to the LEAF is a bad idea. Why put a bunch of money in a EV to give it more performance when it is designed as an econobox. Just buy a performance EV and end up at the same cost in the long run.
 
I don't care about more power, but would appreciate AWD. In the California mountains the authorities are very quick to require snow chains for non-AWD/4WD vehicles. It's silly, and I hardly ever truly need AWD, but the chain requirements stem from too many folks with no snow driving sense coming up here and getting into accidents.
 
JohnOver said:
TonyWilliams said:
My Baja buggy concept just puts the LEAF drivetrain on the rear. I need more batteries, not more power.


I'd love to hear more Tony... Are you thinking of the LEAF as the platform, or a modified VW beetle?

No, it would be a tube chassis. Nothing VW or Nissan there.



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TonyWilliams said:
JohnOver said:
TonyWilliams said:
My Baja buggy concept just puts the LEAF drivetrain on the rear. I need more batteries, not more power.

I'd love to hear more Tony... Are you thinking of the LEAF as the platform, or a modified VW beetle?
No, it would be a tube chassis. Nothing VW or Nissan there.

OMG! Awesome! Love the suspension. That looks like a nice sand rail.

Are you going to be mating an electric motor to that transaxle?
 
EVDRIVER said:
It would be easier to buy a different EV if you want more power. The amount of time and money involved to execute this properly would be silly for the return. Just mod the inverter and put more power to the motor. Regardless the pack is not cooled to handle large kw draws. Adding motors to the LEAF is a bad idea. Why put a bunch of money in a EV to give it more performance when it is designed as an econobox. Just buy a performance EV and end up at the same cost in the long run.

It seems modding the inverter would be the most logical choice, but does anyone know how much more input power the motor will handle?

Secondly, it seems some of the electric cars with more powerful motors really arent that much quicker when you factor in the extra weight of their batteries, chassis, etc. The ActiveE is a good point. Makes much more horsepower, but is probably only a second quicker 0-60mph. I am going to do some testing on my LEAF to see what the instrumented acceleration numbers actually are. Most magazines put it in the 9.4-9.7 second range.

Apparently the car is pretty quick up to 30mph and then seems to run out of steam at that point. Not sure why this is a characteristic of electric motors....to have so much more bottom end than top end. Would a transmission/gears actually help, or not make a difference?
 
adric22 said:
Actually, 72 volts wouldn't be that useful. You'd need a much higher voltage.

If I remember right, an old Zamboni 550 (the first production electric model) used a pair of honking-big Exide Loadhog forklift batteries, wired (I think) for 72VDC. And one big motor, hooked to a modified Zamboni 500 (the corresponding engine-powered model) drive-train, powering all four wheels and the hydraulic systems.

Of course, (1) top speed of a Zamboni is around 9 MPH, and (2) a 550 can get through one, maybe two ice cuts per charge (the 552s can supposedly go all day on a charge; they're much more efficient).

Which is to say, the only electric vehicle with which I have prior experience (driving or tinkering) is one that cuts ice. :lol:

Fun fact: ice resurfacers don't just have tire-studs; they have carbide-tipped tire studs.
 
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