EV Karma - 1971 Karmann Ghia

I recently had an opportunity to buy an electric car. Pictures follow. The car is a beautifully restored 1971 Karmann Ghia and the story goes that the restorer, upon finishing the restoration, decided to make it electric rather than put in a gas engine. The electric system isn't the best so I plan to redo the conversion over time.

As it stands -- it has a D&D ES-15A motor running at 72 volts. This is a Brushed DC series wound motor. Alltrax controller and a 72 volt pack of huge flooded lead acid batteries.

Performance is weak and range is short. It does make it to 45 miles per hour but takes awhile to get there. Haven't done a proper range test but an 8 mile ride yesterday tells me that 10 miles is plausible. That should be enough to take me to work where there is EV charging stations available.

The conversion is very well laid out - just using ancient technology batteries. My plan idea is to get a 120+ volt LiFePO4 pack and switch to a higher voltage controller and keep the same motor.