This almost fully restored* Super Beetle has been converted to all electric drive with a series wound 
DC motor, a bank of lithium ion iron-phosphate batteries, an on-board charger and a state of the art battery management system. With a typical range of 30 - 40 miles and a top speed of 68 mph this car will get you there.

​*Rear inside door panels and brand new headliner are included but not yet installed.
After about 3 years of work, this car took to the road for the first time in June of 2012. Watch the video below as it makes its first run while family members off camera ham it up with silly dialog. Our first surprise was hearing the "Curtis whine" when the motor is running at a very low speed. At low power the controller's PWM cycles at 1500 Hz which can be heard by humans and dogs. As soon as you come up to 8 or 9 mph it switches to 15,000 and goes silent. As annoying as this seems, we have discovered that it is very handy at warning pedestrians in parking lots that what would otherwise be a silent vehicle is just about to move. If you would like to make an offer or get more information please use the handy form at the bottom of this page.
This series wound DC motor just barely fits into the engine compartment. It was designed just for VW conversions. The light bulb serves as a pre-charge resistor that slowly pulls the capacitors in the Curtis Controller up to full voltage so that when you turn the car on there isn't a sudden inrush of high current to the controller. When you first close the battery switch located at the other end of the car the light bulb glows dimly for a few seconds and then goes back off.
Here you see the DC-DC converter. This device drops the 110 VDC high power drive voltage down to 12 V to run all of the car's regular circuits such as lights, horn, wipers and radio.

The electronic throttle is connect to the bug's original accelerator cable. The Collision Switch in the very lower left corner came off a Jaguar. It is one of several switches connected to the Cut-Off Relay.
Here you see the Rick Rudman Battery Management System up close. And below is the charger itself. This is cabled to run off of either 110 or 220 volts.

The car comes with a huge binder with all the manuals and instructions for everything, including my own notes on the conversion.

The whole charging and management system is on-board. It was built locally on the Olympic Peninsula by Manzanita Micro. The electronics alone are worth around $8000.
This is the Curtis Controller that regulates the speed of the motor. It sits on a thick metal slab with air below it that functions as a heat sink.

The terminals in the lower left are all connected to safety switches throughout the car. If any one of them is open the motor will not run. An LED lights up to tell you which switch isn't happy.

All of the high voltage cables are color coded at each end so it easy to see which one goes where.
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There are two banks of batteries in the car. These are located behind the back seat. The other one is up in the luggage compartment.

The cells are tied together in groups of four with two thermal sensors for each cell. There are regulators that automatically balance the cells as they are charged. Communication cables run between each group and regulate the charger through the whole process.
This marine grade high power on/off switch opens the 120 V circuit when you need to add or replace batteries.
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Lithium Ion batteries have a life expectancy of 8 to 10 years. About one third of them have reached the end of their time and they need to be replaced.  My first set were 100 AHour cells that gave me a range of 30 to 40 miles. The new owners of this vehicle will have to decide which ones they use to replace them. 100, 150 or 200 AHour cells are available. Of course, they can expect to drive twice as far with the 200s, but the price may be a big part of that decision. I started with 40 cells which gave me about 145 Volts DC. That was great for speed but the controller ran a little hot. I reduced the number to 36 cells, about 130 Volts DC and everything worked great. The top speed dropped from 68 to about 60 which was a little pokey for the freeway. Later I had to drop to 32 cells and 110 VDC. This gave me a top speed of 52 mph and because I am usually on slower roads I get a bit more distance.

​Here is an interesting video that shows me changing the battery layout in the car: