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This Cheese Wedge Is A Historic 1970s EV - Let's Put Tesla Batteries In It
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 12 ส.ค. 2024
- Declan shows you Kyle Conner's rare, original CommutaCar (based off an earlier model known as the CitiCar), an oddly shaped and tragic rolling piece of metal intended to be an electric city car for commuters. What was Sebring thinking? Can it be swapped to a modern Tesla powertrain? Let's find out!
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#commutacar #citicar #retroev
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Anyone who wants to complain about not restoring to original is free to buy their own and restore that.
Amen!
Especially when original sucked.
@Derpy1969 😂😂😂
Not sure why anyone would want original when there are so many good EV’s now to pilfer parts from. If they had good tech at the time it would have been better than this.
Lots of people restomod rare gas cars as well. I think it's fine. It's a lot more fun and also more usable.
There’s a lot of things out of the ordinary with this car, but I can honestly say that I’ve never seen an odometer with the digits stacked vertically like that before. On any kind of vehicle.
Crazy.
I have seen that before and forget what kind of 60s vintage European car it was in. Perhaps a Fiat?
That interior still looks very good.
One of the best I’ve seen!
they built these cheese wedges back in the day only a few miles from me, until the Gipper ended the Ev subsidies ... thanks for the flashbacks....
You’re welcome lol
Gipper?
@@kipkasper2005 Reagan. Everything bad can be traced back to Reagan.
@@ferky123Sad but true.
but without Uncle Ronnie we wouldn't have the classic 'bedtime for Bonzo'
"It has more power because they increased the voltage... and, that's it."
I've done that once... on a scooter built into a chest cooler. (24v < 36v) The result: It could do 31-mph!😁
It’s the secret electrical engineers don’t want you to know! Want more power? Just give it more voltage! Nothing could go wrong!
OFC, since the solution is always 'more power'
@@nc3826 Tim Allen: (Grunting) "R-r-r...!"😁
@@ElectrekGarage Mind you, I had to upgrade the controller to one that'd handle the load, and the throttle to one that'd work with the controller. After that, it was just adding a 36v pack with a higher capacity than the two lead-acid batteries it replaced....
Who was waiting to hear they were gonna install as many Tesla packs as they could fit, then install a Warp 9 elevator motor? Or the "small" motor from a Tesla Model S 85? Anyone wanna drive a 350-hp "cheese wedge"?😁
It would flip up on its back end the first time you floored it.
It looks like the Bond Bug's slightly more sensible brother. People have put Hayabusa engines in those.
I was. 😀
@@pancudowny Being a fiberglass contraption, to cope with Tesla motor power it would need special frame like trucks have as well all vehicles had the first half of XXTIETH century. Moreover I would argue the wheel base would need elongation to confer some stability.
Probably wouldn't wanna drive it. But definitely want to watch someone else drive it.
Looks fine to me, ask any tinkerer, mechanic, hobbyist... a clean area is the sign of a cluttered mind.
A messy garage is a sign that work is being done instead of time being spent cleaning the mess. If you want a good mechanic, find one that has some clutter around the shop.
I'm actually going to tell you not to clean your garage. You'd be spending time you could have spent working on this CommutaCar. Do that. Thanks!
You’re my new favorite commenter
It is extremely messy though. Got to be said.
This is sick. I've really wanted to buy one of these and do something like this and have a little zippy cheese wedge for local errands. Too bad people still seem to want ~$2-3k for basketcase ones whenever i see them pop up for sale
I got my commutacar for free lol
@@ElectrekGarage don't you dare get rid of your commutacar.... That would be sacrilegious....
Yep, I offered a guy $500 for one in his back lot 20 years ago and he laughed at me. 3 months later he sold it for "scrap" so $150 maybe? People think they have gold then figure out it is just a busted Commutacar.
Lucky for you, since, 20 years ago you would have probably ended up, selling it for scrap 3 months later....(Impractical Money Pit, which is mostly good for nostalgic YT videos by electrical engineers that love them)
@nc3826 For sure. Parts prices and availability make this much more practical at the hobbyist level now.
Sticking with 6hp is a smart move. The battery swap represents a significant weight savings esp if you use CitiCar bumpers instead of the CommutaCar's extra-battery-accommodating huge ones, so it'll be faster anyway.
Hah hah, the amazing plastic cheese wedge!😄 My neighbor had 4 of these back in the 1990's, and I was tasked with getting a couple of them running, via swapping parts around between the 4 and supplying whatever else was needed to make them go. After we got 4 usable tires and enough cables to wire up one complete car, I replaced the 8 - 6 v. golf cart batteries with 4 decent 8D 12 v. truck batteries. The ones I worked on were Citi-Car's and used about the same electric axle as the old Club Car golf carts. The mechanical contactors were sketchy at best, and only had 3 speed selections via huge inline resistors for the 2 lower speeds. The range was horrible at about 15-20 miles tops, but it was enough to drive one in the local July 4th parade in the mid 90's.😄
As a kid, the TV news convinced me we would be doomed to drive this kind of car in the future. I'm looking forward to additional videos on it!
Back in the 1980s I used to pass someone driving a red Comuta Car every day I drove to work. I took a bit of bravery on the driver’s part to drive such a small and slow vehicle in rush hour traffic.😊
You call THAT a messy garage??? You've obviously haven't seen a REAL messy garage. I've seen one where a month's worth of cleanup was necessary before they could extract a project car from it.
Thank you this makes me feel better lol
Maybe that's the upside of dealing with electric vehicles: No greasy liquids to mess up everything.
@@andreasu.3546it’s not fun until gear oil leaks out onto the floor
My people.
Wow those archaic ugah-bugah electric control switch towers! Easy to forget that electric can be that simple and doesn't also mean electronic or high tech these days.
We can't wait to see it with the upgrades. I worked at a garage many moons ago and one came in for maintenance. The fellow wanted me to drive it, that was so cool. The silly relay system was not giving the medium speed was my diagnosis. So I had the job of taking the relays apart cleaning, reassembling and take for another test drive. A memory I will never forget.
The Elcar (Zagato Zele) had a slightly more sophisticated setup where the "gas" pedal controlled a rheostat while you shifted between voltage modes (3 plus reverse) with a 4-position rotary switch that had a knob-and-lever extension built in, so it was a bit like driving an IC car with a semi-automatic transmission - no clutch pedal but you did need to shift up through 3 speeds.
Better looking body, too.
When I was a kid in the late 70s to early 80s in the NoVA/DC area, one of these rolled past my school bus stop every morning. I saw that thing go by for years. Comutacars have garbage range from factory and are SLOW. But traffic in DC was slow in the 70s and destinations aren't far away, so it made sense.
Just a thought, for your CommutaCar rebuild... How about using parts from a used or wrecked, electric riding mower? It would add battery swapping and horsepower.... Plus if you installed the mower deck, you could mow your yard with it.... How fun would that be?
Back in the 1970s, General Electic had the Elec-Trak garden tractor with a dual DC motor mower deck. Sears also sold an electric garden tractor at about the same time. A guy working on my house a few years ago used a vintage Sears tractor to move bricks - it was beautiful, all stock. I believe the electric tractors had a contractor system very similar to the one in the Comuta Car.
The Comuta Car has a GE motor, so similarity would not be too surprising.
Oh, do that to an Urba-Electric. That was a DIY featured on Mechanics aillustrated designed by Steverson Projects. The interesting thing is that it used a continuously variable transmission and wired the "accekerator" pedal to a stepper motor moving the ratio back and forth basically giving you regenerative braking automatically. Mimd you the ten HP motor could probably also be improved.
Unfortunately, the CVT transmission is no longer produced so Steverson recommended a chopper motor controller for later models.
This is fascinating stuff. It looks more like a an old 📺 on wheels than a vehicle. Plastic shell... It's kind of amazing that those things were allowed on the roads.
They probably shouldn’t have been allowed on roads
I'm not stranger to organised chaos at home, but at work all my nuts and bolts are in labelled pill boxes on any big job. Great video man, excited to see the progress
Very interesting project and looking forward to see it come to life. Also your garage is messy. I don't know if you knew that so I figured I should mention it.
>:(
I’ve known of three of those vehicles that did not have a sport auditions. They were quite common for city Park and rec in my local area and used at the local airport.
We’d be so far ahead in the EV industry if big oil hadn’t bought off our politicians.
I had a co-worker in El Paso, TX in 84/85 that had one of these. I remember he use to plug it in at work during the day. I use to think recharging at work was a pretty cool perk if they knew and were allowing it.
You are presenting everything very cool and interesting. I am one of these people who dislike EV's but I am fascinated by your channel. Cheers!
How does it only have 2000 miles from the last 50 years? I had 2000 miles on my electric bicycle in the first year.
The range was terrible on them with their antiquated mechanical contactors, and standard lead-acid 6 volt batteries. The ones I worked on would usually only go 15-20 miles tops before they needed to be recharged. Basically too much weight for the meager 3-1/2 hp. golf cart axle they came with.
@@danw1955 That's horrible. For a 20 mile round trip commute you could just as well buy a normal bicycle. I thought they at least got 40-60 miles.
The citicar was the first car I ever wanted to own. You're letting ten year old me experience a dream that would've been impossible at the time
Finally, been wanting to see this for a while! Unfortunately, most people with citicars are Hyabusa swapping them instead.
This is an exciting project. I wish you all the best with it.
I would love to help, but live in Colorado Springs, so it would be a very long drive - and I work full time.
Woohoo...
Thank you for sharing!
Installs a Warp 9 motor, and now it does Warp 3...!😁
Bud, I never even touched an electric car. I'm a 40 yr old mechanic in Louisiana. I'll tell you what, you can do a review of a 2 slice toaster for 40 minutes and I'll watch the whole thing. I enjoy you.
I’m stealing that toaster idea for content
Interesting project. I would have liked going with one of the smaller HPEVs air cooled AC motors but I appreciate your reasons for not doing that. I suspect you'll want to add a new charger that's more Tesla compatible.
Will probably be using the TSM 2500 charger!
I like old EV cars, never fast but always neat.
I remember a DIY car in the magazine, Popular Mechanics, called the Urba Car. It was developed by Robert Q Riley. It looked very much like this does. According to the article it could be built using a 16 HP gas engine or electric and due to the engine size was freeway legal.
Good luck with staying on schedule.
We've all been there. Personal projects must always take a back seat to those projects that bring in the money to pay the bills.
I mean I can’t complain. I get to make a living making TH-cam videos lol
@@ElectrekGarage 🙂
When you first showed the motor, with the hose sticking out the top side, I wondered "what is that, it can't possibly be to provide heat" but sure enough it is. The defrost and heat on this vehicle must have been even worse than an original VW Beetle - which was pathetic.
I’ll let you know how terrible it is when I get the car working
The defroster element is a dealer installed option. Apparently the switch was a NHTSA requirement, but hooking it up wasn’t. 😊
It was made in Florida. That tells you all you need to know about how much heat it'll make.
If you can modify that system to allow regenerative braking, that would be a bonus as well. If the motor heats-up too much (hence the heating system uses that heat for the cabin), then replace the motor as well.
Unfortunately it is impossible to regen on a series motor
According to Wikipedia, the defrost switch was always there, but the defroster element was a “dealer installed” option. Comuta Car executive: “dealer installed options?, we have a dealer network?”
@@ElectrekGarage It's technically possible, but not worth the trouble.
Ok, looking forward to next week :-)
I’d love to do something like this (I can , just time poor!)
Exciting project. I really do think a new motor is in order however. Without it, there are no roads you can go on where you could even use a fraction of the range it'll have. You could attach a sail and get more speed than with the original motor
I think a 7,5kW / 10HP motor and a modern inverter with the possibility of recuperation (how does that spell in english? You got the idea...) would be nice.
BUT: When i Look at this cheese wedge, the original motor is ok, anything more is technical overkill 😂
I'm excited to see the improvements!
I'd love to see you do a collaboration with Rich Benoit from Rich Rebuilds! It would definitely be entertaining whatever you decided to do!
Would love to team up with him some day!
Hey good coverage. Keep us up-to-date. I got a friend who has two of those cars the city car commuter car thing and we're going to update the batteries as well.
Have you considered using the new net gain half hyper 9? It's a new motor that runs on 48 volt and it has the same controller as the full size hyper 9 so it's a familiar system.
It’s definitely not out of the question to add a new motor 😳
Two 5.3 kwh Model S modules should do nicely... 50kg (110 lbs) battery weight compared to 180kg (396 lbs) upwards for lead acid batteries... Plus you can add liquid cooling to the pack :)
Lead batteries in traction applications really are the worst hell. I'm glad we're fully past that nonsense now.
they make 12V 100Ah Lithium-ion Battery as a direct replacement for lead acid batteries. You probably would still need to change the contactor but it would be a much easier project than dealing with Tesla parts and software.
3:21 you have your mission.. motivation.. get it on the highway
2 cells? No..
As many as you can fit.. and do a cross country drive..
Oh my goodness I recognized alltrack motor controller that thing looks scary to drive
It is!
It’s like a cybertruck prototype
I will try to think of a mean comment, next time.... Since we all know a good cry is good for the soul...... Good luck with the build...
This is true, sometimes reading mean comments and crying is therapy
3 speed switch positions, this reminde me so much of the mechanical resistor speed controller of my first TA02 chassis Tamiya RC car.
The original charger had a problem where it would stick on. When a lead acid battery gets overcharged, it starts breaking the water in the cells down into hydrogen and oxygen, which fills the car with an explosive atmosphere. If the charger unsticks, it creates a spark, and the whole thing goes BOOM.
You got a car in your garage, therefore it's not messy (trust me I've seen garages that didn't have any cars in them and the Cheese Wedge wouldn't fit (I have a hoarder as a relative, it's a work in progress)
I remember Mr. Rogers visiting the manufacturer of those cars.
The car reminds me of the front end of the car from the last starfighter
"Hold me to that schedule!" - week two has passed, does it drive now?
They could have used a variable resistor for control and if they had regen braking... it would be better. Plus a better motor would be nice. Maybe a pancake motor for solid torque... like in forklifts. Why not just start over? Because the government said this one is grandfathered in as roadworthy. But you'll have to upgrade the drive system and frame....
1970s technology for proportional speed control and regeneration was expensive and added weight. They probably ran the numbers and found that using a simple staged contactor with weight saving was more beneficial than more advanced speed control.
Honestly I do not understand how you keep the garage so clean while actually doing work. When you can walk without stepping on tools, it is sus.
Thank you lol
It's the "Makigai MaiMai P126" from Cyberpunk 2077 !!!!!!!!!
It can work as a city commuter. I have memories of one of my parents work friends being over a lot, because the car did not have enough battery life to make it to work and back...
I've always wanted to see it done.
You know how everyone likes to name their cars? I would call this one "The Cheese Grater"
That or door stop
sTOP REMINDING ME ABOUT THE CHANCE THAT I HAD AND MISSED TO BUY ONE OF THESE STOP IT RIGHT NOW.
ah whoops caps lock was on, screw it i ain't rewriting that
oh hey, the Makigai MaiMai from Cyberpunk 2077!
"the estimated battery life is 12,000 to 18,000 miles"
"that is bad"
that is amazing. getting 1,000 miles on a charge would nearly negate the charging time inconvenience.
Would you add a Gillette hair dryer for the heater and defrosting?
You know it!
@@ElectrekGarage Also for drying ur resplendent mane while on the go, a necessity in today's modern fast paced world
manufacturers were not big on colour coding back in those days
I feel like one of these is in the original Bladerunner…
Hell yeah, i have a 6HP one of these too. I really need to get on restoring it, but atleat i made it drivable
Oh dang I didn't realize that mine was a sport trim.
Yooooo! They’re so fun!
2000 to 3000 miles was not uncommon for these cars. That's often when a person fried the batteries, often the second set. This example is in great shape considering many were parked outdoors and 40 years is a long time.
Needs the Changli rear axel with upgraded motor fitted... :):)
5.2 kwh = $300 because THE TESLA BATTERY SECOND MARKET IS AWESOME!
www.ebay.com/itm/115784614910
Your garage is less messy than mine!
Found one of these at a garage sale. Nowhere as pretty as yours.
Thanks for a fun video!
All hail the Algorithm!
Stickers of power, 10 more horses
Never noticed that the NACA duct on these is just a dummy shape that goes nowhere. What where they trying to accomplish with that?
Cleaner garage than mine 😂
Just came across this channel today. Interesting. Waiting to see how this turns out.
think the goal should be to get at least 100 miles out of the upgrade. sure still cant take it on the highway with how slow it is but could get a decent day out in town with it.
I am so excited about this! But, Declan, ummm can we spice it up a bit more? Biiiiiig motor
👀
Yeah About the gurage not as bad as mine.
If your going to change the controller, why don't you bumb the voltage higher than 48, say 72 to increase power/range and also, looking at the complexity (none) you can add a separate 12v Battery for accesories, and looking at the transaxel, I think you can upgrade the motor (at least to gain regen)
Change to led light
CHEESE LOUISE 🧀
You mean... Panasonic batteries? :D
Historically this is the vehicle to remember from 1970ties. However, it is a pitty, that is was and still it is a golf cart, especially compared to full sized road gas boats of the time. It is mind-blowing how dangerous is this contraption vs any road boat at the time. I would argue that at the beginning of XXTIETH century there were much better built EVs. Even the speed of those was comparable with these cheese wedge contraptions. Moreover the "electronic" brain of those brass era EVs wasn't much inferior of the Commuter. The 3 speed idea of using partially some batteries vs all of them at higher speeds is the same. The only advancement is the use of round steering wheel vs a teal and pitiful idea of heating the cabin with air from brushed motor, and maybe a windshield wiper.
I mentioned elsewhere, I passed a driver in one of these every work day back in the 1980s. He gets my credit for bravery.
Inspired for all the worng reasons
OMG....A friend of mine had one of these. lol It was so awful it was cool
Cool! Do It!
Okay how’s this, your horizontal storage system appears nearly at capacity. 😁
Hidden gem channel indeed
BESTIE SLAYYYY
clean ur garage 💅
Bestie I don’t wanna clean my garage that’s boring
Clutter? Surely the best way is the W C fields filing system (from I think - Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch) - the female character flaps and calls him to find a document. He asks, "how long ago" they suggest a month. He says "let me see" and points and lowers his finger an inch and plucks the exact document. So there you have it, inch a month is the filing system.
I wonder whether the heater has some sort of shroud around the motor to collect heat and not carbon dust. I don't suppose it's a brushless motor...
And if you call the chassis a combination rollcage-spaceframe, it sounds much stronger and more sophisticated. I bet it would stand an impact, apart from the fact that almost everything on the road is taller and will ride over it. A semi, an F150, hogs, hedgehogs... Does America even have hedgehogs? Let's say squirrels, for simplicity's sake.
Cool!
Batteries aside, the car is electricity the same as uesd in older dc conveyor belts.
Looks like a Bond Bug from the UK.
speaking of wich... watch this space...
its just dis organized not garbage