This is a VW Type 2 Bay Window — forty-seven years of sheet metal — being rebuilt as an open-source electric research vehicle. The air-cooled engine is gone. In its place: a salvaged Tesla battery, a synchronous motor, an onboard AI that listens and answers without the internet, and a radio room that tracks satellites. Every schematic, torque figure, and line of software is published here.
The drivetrain is a NetGain HyPer 9HV synchronous motor mated to the original Type 2 transmission — the bus keeps its manual gearbox and its character. Power comes from seven salvaged Tesla Model S modules under the floor in welded steel enclosures, managed by an Orion BMS with a dual-contactor safety chain where battery and controller each hold independent authority to shut the other down.
The original gas tank stays. It isn't nostalgia: the design reserves fuel, wiring, and contactors for a future range-extender generator — the bus is a series hybrid that hasn't grown its second half yet.
| motor | HyPer 9HV · SRIPM synchronous |
| controller | X144 · 73–184 V |
| pack | 7 × Model S modules · 126–176 V |
| charging | J1772 · 6.6 kW · ~5.5 h |
| cooling | 2 independent loops · split-parallel |
| cabin heat | battery waste heat + 1.5 kW PTC |
Under a seat sits an AI computer running a multimodal model that hears and sees locally — no cloud, no account, no signal required. Hold a button, ask for the cabin lights, and a relay clicks. Ask when the ISS rises tonight and it answers from an onboard orbital almanac, then tunes the radio to the downlink. Ask it to unlock the doors and it politely refuses: voice can lock, only the owner's key unlocks.
Below the AI, the design is deliberately boring: an always-on microcontroller sips fractions of a watt, guards the 12 V battery, and wakes the bigger computers in tiers — so the bus can sleep for weeks and still light your path when you walk up.
| tier 0 | ESP32 · ~0.3 W · weeks on 12 V |
| tier 1 | Pi 5 head unit · dash touchscreen |
| tier 2 | Jetson Thor · 122 GB · voice + vision |
| voice loop | ~1–2.5 s · fully offline |
| telemetry | CAN bus · listen-only decode |
A software-defined radio watches the spectrum from the dash — FM broadcast to L-band. The bus computes its own satellite pass predictions from public orbital elements: the ISS, METEOR weather birds, polar orbiters. A steerable dish and a VHF/UHF transceiver join the rack next; receive-only until the licensing paperwork says otherwise.
| sdr | LimeSDR Mini · 10 MHz – 3.5 GHz |
| passes | computed onboard · voice-queryable |
| next | dish + rotator · VHF/UHF rig |
The complete build-ready spec: pack architecture, contactor safety chain, fusing, CAN buses, thermal loops. Revision R3.
Interactive harness-by-harness guide — high voltage, 12 V, signal, and CAN, with pinouts and cable schedule.
The full-system electrical schematic in the classic conversion-shop style.
The tiered-brain architecture: wake chain, voice agent, CAN decode, radio suite, and why voice can never unlock the doors.
Nine phases from mechanical install to first spin under throttle, with an eleven-point gate before live high voltage.