At Volvo dealer Harrie Arendsen in Ruurlo, a meeting was organised by ATC Deventer-Zutphen where Martijn Hendriks shared his story about converting his Volvo 240 GL Classic to electric.
After some words of welcome in local dialect Martijn was introduced. He thoroughly explained his entire conversion. One of his principles was a professional conversion and preserving the original 240 character as much as possible. In my view this worked out extremely well, up to and including the switches used and, for example, retaining the original tachometer. To do this, he has worked out the entire electrical diagram of a Volvo 240 and interwoven all EV-specific components. Fortunately for me the schematics of a Volvo Amazon are much more straightforward.
He started his conversion in 2009 and in 2011 the new RDW rules came into effect. One of these rules was meeting the requirements for electromagnetic compatibility (EMC). Therefore he started looking for EMC documentation in the course of the process and luckily component suppliers were willing to help him as an individual. His car was finally approved at the end of 2011, so he had to meet and meet these new requirements.
I have the advantage that there are now commercial parties such as New Electric that can provide all necessary EMC certificates.
During the break he gave a lot of additional explanation to the car.
The whole car looks super cared for. Martijn has eyes for details and clean design choices. A nice detail, for example, is that he has retained the original coolant reservoir for the cooling system of the inverter and motor.
New information and insights
Although I had already extensively viewed his website about the conversion, I also learned many new things from his presentation and exchange with Martijn. He also sometimes looks at things differently than Anne from New Electric during my introduction there. A great way to further develop my own image and vision. My takeaways are:
- His Volvo 240 has a consumption of 200 Wh/km. In my calculations I assumed 250 Wh/km for my Amazon wagon, so it might be a bit more favorable in practice and I will achieve a bigger range.
- The battery box in the front must remain 10 cm from the front point (and also 10 for the rear box and rear end).
- The brake lights come on when he used the engine brakes and regenerates. He also has a light built into his dashboard that lets him know that his brake lights are on.
- The motor is limited to 6500 RPM
- His interior heating is liquid based and thus uses the original heater. The water is electrically heated with the high voltage from the battery pack. The residual heat from the motor and inverter cannot be used for this, these temperatures are too low and usually do not get warmer than lukewarm.
- He had the radiator for the cooling system for the engine and inverter made by Hartgers Radiateuren in Zuthpen
- Martijn himself has not installed a battery pack heater (but did do some preparations), but he definitely recommends doing this because LiFePO4 batteries can be damaged if you charge them at temperatures below 5 degrees.
- It has two Brusa chargers so that it can charge 2-phase and therefore can charge at 30 km / hour. I am currently considering using only one charger. However, he advised to consider implementing a second.
Volvo V50 electric
In addition to Martijn’s 240, there was also a V60 plug in hybrid and a full electric Volvo V50.
The Volvo V50 is for sale for € 21.900 euro incl. VAT (it is a VAT car and not margin so ex. VAT it is a little over eighteen thousand euros. That is not too bad when you compare it to the costs of converting a car yourself. This car is from 2010 and has driven a little more than 30,000 km.
This car has been converted as part of the project “Testing grounds hybrid and electric driving” which was initiated by the Ministry of Transport, Public Works and Water Management in 2009.
These pilot projects are part of the Electric Driving Plan 2009-2011 Plan, in which the Cabinet has formulated the ambition to have 200,000 electric vehicles on the road in the Netherlands by 2020. (Source: Evaluation 2013).
De V50 was part of the cluster “Rotterdam Tests Electric Driving” from April 2012 to April 2013. In addition on the Facebook page Volvo 240 GL Classic Electric from Martijn that the car was also used as a company car from Eneco and that the car was converted between 2009 and 2011. This is done by the Dutch company All Green Vehicles (AGV), nowadays Electric Power Holland and they have used a brushless DC motor and use a Brusa NLG513 charger just like Martijn. Do you know more about this car? Leave a comment on the message in the Facebook page from Martijn. Hats off for this conversion, because in a Volvo V50 the electronics are a whole lot more complex.
