GarageConverter

The RD6 platform specs have me thinking way too hard about a conversion donor. Unibody midsize pickup, existing V2L discharge hardware already wired in from the factory — that's most of the hard part done for you if you were ever going to source a chassis for a small EV utility build instead of starting from an ICE donor. Wish I could get my hands on a wrecked one just to see the pack layout. Probably years off from US salvage yards even in the best case.

A cell that survives full discharge without damage is going straight on my someday-build list.

The 25-unit annual production threshold is the right line to draw. Below that you're in hobbyist territory where individual responsibility and state inspection laws apply; above it you're a commercial operation where fleet customers reasonably expect standardized safety verification. The question of whether small conversion shops need a simplified pathway is a real one — NHTSA is right to specifically request comment on it.

Already have an Atto 3 salvage alert set up on three different forums after reading this. Fully aware the article is telling me not to do this and I'm doing it anyway — there's something appealing about building a custom enclosure around a genuinely different cell format instead of the same 280Ah brick everyone else is running. Will report back whenever a viable pack actually shows up. Could be a year. Could be never.

The instructor pipeline lagging the student pipeline is the bottleneck that's hard to solve with money alone. You can fund equipment and curriculum at community colleges, but ASE L3-certified instructors with real-world EV diagnostic experience are in short supply precisely because they can earn more working at a dealership than teaching. That feedback loop takes time to resolve.

The bus bar sizing section is the part I forwarded to three people this week. Everyone under-specs the bus bars and then spends a week wondering why voltage drop under load doesn't match the BMS readings. One addition: torque spec on the terminal hardware matters as much as the bar size. I've seen finger-tight connections on 280Ah cells arc at 150A discharge. Quarter-inch drive, correct torque values, thread-locked after. Not optional.

The section on defect rates from vetted importers versus spot market buys is the most actionable part of this guide. I learned the hard way in 2023 that saving $40 on cells from an unverified supplier is not worth the time spent testing every cell and returning the bad ones. The advice to budget for two spare cells per pack regardless of supplier is solid.

@batterynerd The plates are clean — these came from cars I pulled myself, all drivable at time of pull. I have photos of each car's engine bay (they kept their original plates so I never got water in the cabin). The port fittings are aluminum and look good. I'll send photos of a representative sample if you're serious about the lot.

@engineer I'm running a simplified loop — the Volt's original aluminum cooling plates are still on the modules (they're integral to the module housing). I replaced the OEM pump with a 12V Bosch brushless pump that I control with a PWM signal from my BMS temperature output. The loop goes: pump → modules → 4-row aluminum radiator (from a Chevy pickup truck, repurposed) → pump. No thermostat — just pump speed proportional to module temp. It's worked well; I've never seen module temps above 38°C even in Phoenix summer.

I learned this lesson the hard way on my first build — a motorcycle conversion with a canned motor and a cheap 72V pack stuffed into the existing battery box with no airflow. First summer ride in Phoenix I watched the cell temperature climb to 52°C before I cut power and pulled over. The pack recovered but the cells were noticeably weaker after that season. My Beetle build has a temperature display as a primary instrument and I won't start a drive with cells above 35°C.