Sorry, this is not a new question, I'm surprised your
search did not turn this up.

Essentially, you take a syncro vanagon,  disconnect
the driveshaft, and then install an electric motor
system to drive the front wheels. Front electric plus
rear gas powered=hybrid.

--- Kyle Davis <davis_family_46168@YAHOO.COM> wrote:

> Hey all,
>
>      From personal experience (and list lurking and
> ebay hunting) powerplant transplants are pretty
> common
> in the vanagons...  A majority of them are well
> documented 2.1 in a 1.9, air cooled to water, diesel
> to gas, vw to suby, vw to porsche, vw to tiico, gas
> to
> tdi, etc.
>
>      I also remember reading about an electric bus
> (not vanagon) so I can presume gas>electric.
>
>      This brings me to my next question.  Did
> anybody
> ever consider going halfsies with that last one, ala
> Toyota Prius or Honda Insight style?
>
>      The most bizarre conversion I've heard of was
> VW
> to Ford 2.8 liter v6 (somewhere, Ben Pon must be in
> shock, or rolling over in his grave.)
>
>      I would dearly love to tell the oil industry
> what
> to do with high gas prices and convert the westy
> into
> total electric, but a few things hold me back.
>
>      1.)  Practicality.  The westy is basically a
> fully-laden with camping gear bus.  An electric
> motor,
> no matter how many batteries feed it, just may not
> be
> able to do much with that.
>
>      2.)  Cost.
>
>      3.)  Safety.  Excessive electricity around lpg
> may be an inherently Bad Idea TM.
>
>      4.)  Getting back to 1, it gets reasonably cold
> here in the midwest, and my research of pure
> electric
> cars mentioned using hair dryers as heaters.
>
>     So, how feasible would it be to meet in the
> middle?  And, I'm not necessarily saying bolt on a
> prius or an insight, or even a ford escape hybrid
> engine into this solution, or suggest that that
> would
> even work.  I guess I am just wondering if anybody
> has
> tried this, and, if so what measure of success or
> failure they were able to obtain...
>
> Kyle
>
>
>
>
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