This blog documents the restoration, and conversion, of a 1965 Humber (Singer) Vogue to a fully electric vehicle. The Vogue will be powered by an 11kW(modified), 3 phase industrial AC motor, controlled by an industry standard Variable Speed Drive (VSD) or Inverter. To be able to produce the 400 volts phase to phase the VSD will need about 600 VDC of batteries. A big thanks to the contributors on the AEVA forum: http://forums.aeva.asn.au/forums/

Friday, July 31, 2009

Winding Window Refurbishing

A few delays going on at the moment. One of them is the search for a "Bailey Channel" that matches the original fitted to the Vogue. Bailey Channel is the name given to the felt lined slotted stuff in which your winding windows slide up and down.

We have given up on an exact match and a long search may have ended up finding one that is made (a replica) for the EH Holden.
This is what we were looking for.

Friday, July 24, 2009

Respray Finished


The Vogue is back home.
It arrived home on the 40th anniversary of humankind landing on the moon (20th July 1969).

No trim, no rubber, no glass, no interior, no lights.
Now to order all the rubbers.

After 7 weeks away and not being started, it burst to life on the first turn of the Engine. I'm going to miss that exhaust note...

The colour is hard to photograph. It changes depending on what angle you look at it. It's a light to medium metallic blue. I LOVE it!

Thursday, July 23, 2009

Basic Electrical Diagram and Layout

I notice that I haven't described anywhere how the electrical system in the car works.
Here is a basic diagram.
Essentially a bank of batteries supplies 600 Volts DC to the controller, that "chops" the DC up to look enough like 3 Phase AC (the type of AC used in factories) to run the 3 Phase AC Induction Motor.

The controller "*speed" signal comes from an accelerator pedal exactly the same as used on "fly by wire" cars like the Holden Astra, Audi, VW Golf etc. (*Actually the pedal controls torque.)

This diagram shows Lithium Iron Nano-phosphate battery packs. There are 12 packs of 53Volts (shown in diagram as 48V) with 20AH capacity - that makes around a 12kW/h pack.

The motor is coupled directly to the tail-shaft. There is no clutch or gearbox.


Here is the proposed layout of these components in the car.
This will most likely change a bit once I have the existing Engine and gearbox out and can better measure where stuff can go. (Updated to show Lithium Batteries.)
Later addition: A note on the battery pack size. 12kW/h is a small pack for an EV but will be more than adequate for the range I want and resulted in the car weighing about the same as the petrol version - a plus for engineering approval. Another plus is of course the price.

Friday, July 10, 2009

Top Coat Going On


Not a great photo but it shows that the roof is pretty much done.

Why just the roof? Well we changed our minds - now it's going to be a two-tone.

Lower colour goes on next week...