I bought an Elcat electric van!

The Elcat is an obscure Finnish EV conversion based on a Subaru Sambar kei van! Made throughout the 90's and powered by lead-acid batteries, they were never very popular. Today, most of them are lost to time, but I managed to snag up a completely original one.
Throw money at me: / ffcossag
Music, when applicable, supplied by combatplayer.b...
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[@FrankenShop]

Very cool acquisition! I look forward to seeing your ongoing progress on it.

[@FFcossag]

I just hope I'll have time to film as much of it as I want to! I'm probably getting the battery cells for it later this week, and then the fun begins ...

[@LearningByDoin]

Fellow Elcat rider here (Stockholm). I have 2 Elcats, both currently under maintenance to replace motors/batteries, reach out if you need batteries or motors, or even knowledge ;)

[@FFcossag]

Oh, I'd be *extremely* interested! Elcats are so obscure that finding anyone else who owns one is rare indeed! I'd love to share some info about them (especially since I barely have any). Please send me an email at [e-mail] or add me on Discord: FF#7785

[@Lillfot]

So freaking adorable, and what an absolutely lovely restoration to come! Lots of love and well wishes from Sweden.

[@FFcossag]

Thanks - and yes, these are ADORBS!!!

[@danielelise7348]

Sweden fking ROCKS I love it,I am Australian but if I ever leave here,I will be heading to SWEDEN for fika,with drop dead gorgeous Swedish babes!🇸🇪

[@cocusar]

looking forward to this project! very cool, and true to the theme of your channel!

[@FFcossag]

Thanks, and yes - this is about as FFcossag as it gets! It's almost a shame that I'm putting lithium batteries in it, since I usually roll lead, hehe, but alas that is just not practical.

[@danielelise7348]

That's dope AF Ludwig & it sounded so baddass hearing you talk in Finnish. 👊🤘⚡🔌

[@twocvbloke]

Last one of these I saw (online at least) was the one that Flexiny has (or had, dunno if they sold it in the time since), funny little vans, definitely worth converting to something more modern battery-wise and keeping it going... :D

[@sarkybugger5009]

It's like a milk float with a gearbox. Tinted glass, too. I shall look forward to seeing this project progress. 👍

[@FFcossag]

5-speed manual, rear engined, rear wheel drive, independent rear suspension ... It's a sports car!

[@valentinmusteata6592]

Looking forward for updates! A whole subaru community is waiting :D

[@Random-fs8tc]

Looking forward to more videos on this project!

[@tigerelectronics5966]

This is also my dream van! but unfortunately like you said a lot of them are just completely modified. I have seen a few of these pop up here in sweden, most likely imported from finland! But yours is original and that is so cool!!! And I look forward to seeing the battery upgrade, tesla batts in this will be amazing! this will be really fun to follow! :D!!!!!! You can also charge these with your solar panel system hehe, completely free driving! Rent fram med elbil!

[@FFcossag]

Since this is so low voltage, I'm toying with the idea of mounting a couple of solar panels to the roof. I can probably fit 200-300 W worth, so it could feasibly produce 1-2 kWh per sunny day. But that's for far into the future.

[@tigerelectronics5966]

@@FFcossag indeed! That would be a really neat idea, and easy to implement with the low voltage :) This van can be a lot of fun :) I am now very inspired to buy a van of my own, I want to build something similar to your other van, so I can go out and about a bit and have somewhere to sleep

[@ChongMcBong]

nice little van :) todella hyva, perkele

[@Tjousk]

That's a neat little thing, even with the issues.

[@1bigsyd]

Excellent looking forward to following this build…

[@WSmart1]

Three at last! Three at last!

[@TheKukunuku]

good luck!

[@krillex]

fantastic!

[@OffGridAussiePrepper]

PIMP MY RIDE BABY.... not so much on the baby part and chop chop with more vids, b4 winter comes back for u damminet

[@grapsorz]

the E12 is fun van to customize ;) they need the 1200cc petrol engine tho ;) you did get kits to make them look retro etc ;) so if you get a crappy one you can customize that one ;)

[@FFcossag]

I am not going to customise anything on this! I like my things stock as stock can be. Perhaps I'll add door switches though, hehe.

[@grapsorz]

@@FFcossag if you get a "crap one" you can go bananas ;) one that is damage in the front or something.

[@FFcossag]

Of course, if you're into that sort of thing. I don't really like customising things like that. Changes I make to thins I own tend to be invisible and only provide subtle improvements in user experience.

[@askelton1551]

rad

[@varperaza]

Has there been any progress? I just bought myself a elcat too and I need to figure out what kind of batteries I should get for it.

[@FFcossag]

Plenty of progress, I've just not had time to edit any videos due to some unfortunate circumstances. Elcats are pretty battery agnostic, any lithium pack that'll end up roughly within its lead-acid operating voltage range will work just fine. We should found an English-speaking Elcat owner's club, hehe.

[@FFcossag]

Do you have a link or name of the Facebook group? It won't show up when I search, Facebook probably thinks I live too far away or something.

[@SuperBrainAK]

Cool!!! Are those Tesla's you are talking about the same as that wooden Tesla? 😀 I guess there is no plans to upgrade it to a more efficient brushless motor?

[@FFcossag]

The wooden Tesla is the one that's going to quite literally be providing cells to this vehicle! We're ripping the battery apart this week. And no, no brushless motor. That would ruin the essence of the Elcat, since you are basically forced to use crappy, unreliable Chinese motors and controllers. I want this thing to be as original as it makes sense to keep it.

[@SuperBrainAK]

@@FFcossag I see, cool

[@fouzaialaa7962]

the only problem i hear you say is that the motor is brushed !! are you gonna inspect the brushes ? it would be interesting to see

[@zaprodk]

It's said at 01:24 that it's brushed.

[@fouzaialaa7962]

@@zaprodk yes i heard him say it !! thats why i asked if he is going to inspect them !! becoz they wear down

[@FFcossag]

We'll see. It's fairly low mileage and it's been driven calmly for over a decade, so I would imagine that the brushes are actually in fairly good condition. I'm not sure I want to take the motor apart unless I have to.

[@playdav485]

hi is that the van that is know for going on 2 wheels when stopping?

[@FFcossag]

I have no idea, but all Kei vans kind of look like they might!

[@jinpingthebear110]

My Summer Car

[@FFcossag]

Hehehe. I'm actually planning on making this all-year-round capable. I've already got the heater working (ish), and since I'm working with liquid cooled Tesla battery modules, adding battery heating will be really quite easy.

[@nerdydev]

I have a 2005 diesel van that has been sat since about the start of covid. doesn't start any more. Any tips?

[@zaprodk]

I think there's a better place to ask :D

[@nerdydev]

@@zaprodk where?

[@FFcossag]

Watch Shrodinger's Box.

[@nerdydev]

@@FFcossagomg thank you sir. I didn't know about that channel. Perfect thank you.

[@JoneKone]

Posti tuo posti vie.

[@FFcossag]

Is that some old Posti slogan? We don't get the Finnish post here, so I'm not familiar with it.