[Yodastien]

So my goal is in a few years time to build myself a Beck Spyder with an electric drive train but i want to go beyond just throwing an electric motor on a vw transaxle. I want to work on programming my own logic for an adaptive cruise control and maybe some sort of self driving semblance in the future so i definitely dont want a manual transmission either complicating the process or adding extra weight. I was thinking a tesla motor might be easiest for that but they do cost a fair bit . I am currently working with Arduinos to automate processes at work so i have that side covered ish.

 

[brian_]

The Chevrolet Bolt drive unit is very compact, and Yabert used one successfully in a VW van conversion, so that or something similar is a possibility for replacing the engine and transaxle. A Tesla Model S or X drive unit - even the "small" variant, seems like a lot for such as small car.

Unfortunately, the Beck Spyder (like the original Porsche that it copies) uses a swing-axle setup, so the transaxle has to take suspension loads... and no EV drive unit is going to be compatible with that. If you don't use a VW/Porsche swing-axle transaxle, you need to change the suspension, perhaps to the VW CV-joint design.

You can get into this issue in detail in a separate thread, in the Build section or the Technical section.