Rinehart No-Go, Tesla Drive Unit, Yes-Yes
I have decided not to return the Rinehart for evaluation and repair. I am worried that the repair could be as much as a new unit. Even if the repair was a fraction of new unit and they test the system before returning it to me, there is no guarantee that it will work in my car. It is odd that I have had two other inverters in the car and they both worked, after initial startup issues. But I worked continuously on setting up the Rinehart for over two months and could only get it to enable, but not turn the wheels. I would rather have a new unit than one that was repaired because they will have only repaired the failed components and their tests might not reveal what the issue was that caused it to fail in my car. I have said to people that if I was doing a conversion today that I would put a Tesla drive unit in it. Used Tesla drive units have been steadily coming down in price as the number of Tesla cars are on the road and consequently the number of wrecked Teslas. The Tesla drive unit is complete package, motor, inverter and output drive. Just a controller and appropriate accelerator and brake pedals are needed. The biggest unknown for putting a Tesla drive unit in the 320e is rear drive structure strong enough for the doubling in torque and nearly tripling in horsepower a small Tesla drive unit would be capable of. The Siemens/DMOC was never tested in the 320e on a dynamometer but the test vehicle for the Siemens/DMOC showed 200 ft-lb and 160HP, so the rear differential may have already seen 200 ft-lb of torque. The Tesla Drive unit would not be connected through the differential, however. In fact, the whole drive train would be removed, Siemens motor, Getrag 5-speed transmission, drive shaft and rear differential. New output shafts would have to be fabricated to fit my car. Some kind of mounting frame would also need to be fabricated to hold the Tesla. The rear axle carrier and trailing arms would have to be looked at for strength. I might see if someone could model that for me.