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Electric Vehicle Specialist Training VW Group Vehicles

Electric Vehicle Specialist Training VW Group Vehicles

Electric Vehicle Specialist Training VW Group VehiclesElectric Vehicle Specialist Training VW Group Vehicles – drive your business onwards.

“Hello, It Mrs Jones here. I’ve got rid of my Diesel Golf and I’ve Bought and ID3. Are you guys OK to help me fix a problem with it? The battery seems to have gone flat.” 

How are you going to handle the phone call in to your reception?

This call can strike fear into the heart of the unprepared garage, and lead to more questions. The unprepared garage may invite Mrs Jones to take a trip to the dealer, as they don’t know anything about electric VW Group vehicles. This is a huge mistake and a missed opportunity.  

Mrs Jones’ problem might just be the 12 volt battery, but how will you know unless you’re trained and prepared?

Specialist Training on VW Group Vehicles

Through attending a hands-on technical training course, aimed specifically at the VW Group vehicles, you could be the go-to VW specialist in your area, being a EV prepared garage business. The EV prepared garage will know what questions to ask and what to do when the vehicle arrives. 

Low voltage charging systems on an EV don’t have an alternator – they have a DC to DC converter. Do you know how to test and diagnose this system? This is where the fault with Mrs Jones car could be. 

The High Voltage battery can be charged via a DC rapid charge or an AC Fast charge, or an AC granny charger. Do you know how to test and diagnose these charge systems? This is where the fault with Mrs Jones car could be. 

The onboard charger takes the AC input and flips it to DC to charge the main battery. Do you know how to test and diagnose this system?  This is where the fault with Mrs Jones car could be. 

The AC system plays a big part in thermal management of battery, drivetrain and charging. It may include a heat pump and use a high voltage compressor.  Do you know how to test and diagnose this system?  This is where the fault with Mrs Jones car could be. 

Electric Vehicle Specialist Training VW Group Vehicles will help you fill the knowledge gap and offer a highly professional service to your customers.

With EV, everything is different. Prepare for the flood while the tide is out.

The engine is different, the transmission is different, the brake system is different, the fuel source is different, the low voltage system is different, the heating and air con is different, servicing is different. Make this difference work to your advantage.

The harsh reality is, whatever your personal position on electric vehicles, they are coming and you need technical training to take advantage of the opportunity.

Find out more about the Electric Vehicle Specialist Training VW Group Vehicles at the link: https://techtopics.co.uk/electric-vehicle-volkswagen-group-vehicles/

The Electric Vehicle Training Solution For VW Group Specialists.

We’re offering our unique 3 day, VW Group specific, Electric Vehicle Training course which will help you become the EV prepared garage in your area.

Using the most popular VW MEB platform (VW ID3, ID4, ID5 & ID6, Audi Q4 e-tron, Q5 e-tron, Seat Cupra Born, Skoda Enyaq), you will be trained and ready to take advantage of the business opportunities that the electric revolution will present to VW Group Specialists.

Read all about VW Groups road to zero strategy here: https://www.volkswagen-newsroom.com/en/on-the-way-to-zero-the-general-strategy-7226

Course places are strictly limited. Ideally, you have an IMI EV level 3 or IMI EV level 4 certificate, be working on VW group vehicles and be willing to take advantage that the EV revolution presents.

Harmonic Motion Podcast Episode 15: Tina Drayson

Tina Drayson, Operations Manager at CCM, joins James as they discuss all things garage business management. CCM is an award-winning group of garages located in the South East of England. With her background in data statistics, Tina started at the company in accounting...

Harmonic Motion Podcast Episode 6: Jennifer Webb HR Vitals

James and Jennifer discuss a wide range of subjects relating to people, training, team building and things related to automotive garage business. We discuss the technician crisis, high performance and it's causes, people as individuals and as part of work teams,...

Harmonic Motion Podcast Episode 5: Mick Shaikly Multi-Award Winning Garage Owner

In this episode of the Harmonic Motion Podcast, James Dillon is discussing the garage business with multi-award winning garage owner Mick Shaikly. James and Mick discuss the origins of the Shaikly Motor Group which has its base near Colchester, in the UK.    Mick’s...

Harmonic Motion Podcast Episode 4: Top Garage

In this episode of the Harmonic Motion podcast, James Dillon is discussing the Top Garage competition with current judges Ian Gilgrass and Glenn Cutter.  Listen as they provide invaluable tips for garage owners on entering and being successful in the competition as...

The Harmonic Motion Podcast Episode 3: Jay Wheatley Garage Coach & Mentor

In this episode, James Dillon talks about garage business matters with garage owner Jay Wheatley. Jay took over an established garage business, changed it's emphasis from generalist to specialist, grew it and then sold it. Jay shares the trials, tribulations and...

Retro-electrification, converting retro Ford to electric power.

Here is a pretty cool conversion of one of Fords finest, A MK1 Cortina.

The conversion was carried out by Charged Garage in Australia (https://chargedgarage.com/). Check out their page for more details and information.

Tim Harrison runs the car out of Brisbane and his conversion had a moderate budget in comparison to some others. It uses a Netgain HyPer9 AC electric motor and a batteried from a Tesla totalling 31kWh. Utilising  a CHAdeMo charging port fitted (where the exhaust pipe used to be) for DC fast charging.

More details here : http://evcentral.com.au/australian-electromod-tesla-batteried-1965-ford-cortina-mk1/

Great RetroEVmod. Well done to all involved.

Retro-electrification, converting ‘retro’ BMW’s to Electric.

The world of electric vehicle ‘retro’ conversions has been active for a good few years. It has remained largely confined either to geeky types who are plugging away in their home garages and labs doing some really clever things adapting parts from crashed EV’s and putting them into slightly retro internal combustion cars, or larger commercial workshops who are fitting kits of bits provided by others into more expensive classics cars.

One particular pioneering type, Damien Maguire, an engineer from Southern Ireland, who we’ve followed for the past five years, has converted several ‘retro rides. His particular thing (well one of his ‘things’) is the EV upcycling of old BMW’s, using a variety of electrification componentry. These conversions don’t necessarily cost £1000’s, in fact he has a series of videos which focuses on low cost conversion (an EV conversion for 1000 euros).

Mr Maguire’s skill set goes way beyond the mechanical aspects of bolting car bits from crashed EV’s into broken internal combustion engined vehicles. His background as an electronics engineer means that he has geek level knowledge and skills when it comes to reverse engineering CAN signals, reverse engineering hardware (such as inverters and their controller function) and developing (or co-developing) an open source motor controllers.

If you have an inkling that you’d like to get into EV, and perhaps convert one of your own project vehicles to electric power, head over to Damien’s Youtube channel – it will be time very well spent, and will give you a detailed lowdown on how to make this happen.

Check out his channel…… Link to Damien’s Youtube channel:  https://www.youtube.com/c/Evbmw/videos

 

Autonomous Nissan Leaf Self Drives to Sunderland

Technical Topics are actively bringing technical understanding and training solutions to UK aftermarket garages and technicians. We were very interested in following the story of the Nissan led HumanDrive consortium, as it touches two areas of vehicle technology, Autonomous and Electric Vehicle which we have been supporting with technical training for the past couple of years.

The ambitious project, which received combined Government funding totalling around £13.5 million, had an objective, known as the Grand Drive, of driving from the Nissan European Technical Centre in Cranfield, Bedfordshire to the factory in Sunderland.

The 230 mile journey, which was completed on 28th November 2019, featured the Nissan Leaf that was fitted with GPS, radar, LIDAR, and cameras. It saw the lessons learned at Cranfield put into practice in a wide range of real-world driving scenarios in order to enable the Leaf to negotiate country lanes with no or minimal road markings, junctions, roundabouts and motorways. The autonomous technology was utilised along the route to change lanes, merge and stop and start when necessary.

The journey marks a very significant milestone in the development of autonomous cars, but the HumanDrive went beyond simply the development or refinement of autonomous drive technology. The research focused on advancing cyber security features in autonomous drive vehicles, developing testing and safety methodologies for UK autonomous drive testing whilst also investigating the implications that autonomous drive vehicles will have on the wider transport system.

There are significant implications for aftermarket repair business of autonomous drive, particularly relating to vehicle repairs, concerning the correct diagnosis, repair and calibration procedures of radar, LIDAR, and camera systems. Technical Topics is a leading provider of technical training solutions relating to autonomous driver assistance systems, also known as ADAS, for independent garages, technicians and body repair businesses.

Check out our ADAS Accredited training here

The HumanDrive consortium consists of the following partners (along with their specific area of interest). Nissan: Lead partner and leading the autonomous vehicle (AV) development. Hitachi: Artificial Intelligence (AI) to provide human-like control and perception. University of Leeds: Understanding humanistic driving and its application to AVs whilst also developing a driver risk model. Connected Places Catapult (CPC): Project management, communications and marketing activity, dissemination and safety case elements of the project. HORIBA MIRA: Provider of test facilities, supported safety aspects of the project. SBD Automotive: Cyber security support and AV Human machine Interface (HMI) studies. Cranfield University: Provider of test facilities and supported AV demonstrations. Atkins Ltd: Provision of a Cyber Security Framework. Aimsun Ltd: Studying the impact of AVs on the transport system. Highways England: Understanding the infrastructure needs for AV deployment.