100% Electric Volvo Amazon wagon

100 kW liquid cooled Siemens AC motor with 300 Nm torque coupled with a rebuild M400 gearbox from a Volvo 164 while keeping the long shifter. Using a DMOC 645 liquid cooled inverter.

Siemens AC motor

The battery from a Tesla Model S are known for their high energy density and due to their liquid cooling have excellent opportunities for long a lifespan.

Tesla battery modules

CHAdeMO Fastcharge

Using the EVcreate CHAdeMO controller. Up to 100A but I used 80A max. Allowed DC charge current dynamically controlled by the BMS depending on factors such as battery temperature and state of charge.

AC onboard chargers

Two Thunderstruck TSM2500 chargers of 3,3 kW each hidden on the left and right hand side in the trunk.

Thermal management

Keeping batteries in their ideal temperature range during operation is key in optimizing their lifespan. Lithium batteries neither should be too hot nor too cold. More information in my EVcreate blogpost: Ideal battery temperature?

The motor, inverter and DC/DC converter need liquid cooling. However, they al differ in ideal and more important acceptable temperature. In the end I decided to implement three separate cooling systems.

You do not want to overheat for example batteries or electronics with waste heat of the motor. There was not enough room to implement a 4-way valve to use motor waste heat to warm up the batteries like Tesla does. More details about what Tesla does can be found in the EVcreate blogpost: Using Tesla thermal management system parts. The radiator sizes were designed based on waste heat to be dissipated while balancing and distributing available space.

Displays

The electric Volvo Amazon wagon has two small screens integrated in the speedo and one larger screen embedded in the dashboard.

Two small screens were integrated in the original speedometer where the tank and temp. meter used to be. Starting procedure remained identical, when you turn the ignition on the warning lights light up and after starting these go off (if there was no warning). Furthermore the iso icon for ‘Ready’ would show up on the screen.

The content of these screens was different for drive and charge mode.

In the middle of the dash where the heater controls used to be (moved those to the right a bit) a 5-inch screen was integrated. Previous and next page were controlled by an Amazon-style knob. For AC and DC charging two pages showing process specific data were implemented.

EV-Peripherals

The custom home build EV-peripherals controller drives all secondary features. From remote control to cooling pumps and fans to the small displays and the interior heating and cooling. It uses heating and cooling requests coming from the BMS as well as various inputs such as buttons, switches, speed and temperatures and parameters from the CAN-BUS.