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Cont: Electric Vehicles II

There are companies in Britain that do this commercially. Look for "Electric Classic Cars" on YouTube.
 
There’s a 35 year old Renault 5 sitting in our barn up in the mountains that would be a perfect candidate for an EV conversion. When I’m on holiday up there in August I’ll do some googling and build a spreadsheet.
 
jadebox said:
At a Maker Faire a few years ago, several people were showing off their home-built electric conversations. They weren't getting the range or performance of modern EVs, but most people don't need 300hp and don't drive more than 30 or 40 miles a day. And it is pretty cool seeing a classic VW Bus or whatever powered by an electric motor.

I wonder what it would take to convert our Mustang to electric? Sacrilege, I know, but Ford started it!
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I think we can expect it happening more and more. I just read that battery costs were plummeting to as low as $50 a KWh. That is only $3,000 for 60KW. It's not that expensive to buy a car with a blown engine.
 
I keep wondering about this. I have been driving for ages and ages, and the first couple of cars I had were Peugeot 403's. Those were smallish, compact but not tiny, slow to accelerate and limited in power, but still with plenty enough to keep up with traffic and to get a speeding ticket, They developed 65 horsepower. Back in the 60's people were putting golf cart motors in VW beetles and running them on marine batteries. A Nissan Leaf develops over 200. If you put, say, 100 horses in a midsized sedan without a bunch of gizmos and gadgets and creature comforts, how much modern high output battery would you need to get a good range?
 
I was joking when I said that "Ford started it" - referring to their electric Mustang, the Mach-E. But, I just found out that Ford actually sells the Mach-E motor for people doing EV conversions. And there are several companies producing conversation kits for Mustangs. I don't think I really will convert our Mustang any time soon, but it is cool learning that there are ways to do it.
 
jadebox said:
I was joking when I said that "Ford started it" - referring to their electric Mustang, the Mach-E. But, I just found out that Ford actually sells the Mach-E motor for people doing EV conversions. And there are several companies producing conversation kits for Mustangs. I don't think I really will convert our Mustang any time soon, but it is cool learning that there are ways to do it.
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I read somewhere that Ford sells a conversion that works on older Ford trucks. That seems a nifty idea. A bit late for me, as I sold my short-bed 1978 F150 4x4 in 1990, but that would have been a nice rig. With fairly high ground clearance and a lot of heavy components, it would have held a lot of batteries easily. Always a nice looking truck, it's a classic these days.
 
bruto said:
I read somewhere that Ford sells a conversion that works on older Ford trucks. That seems a nifty idea. A bit late for me, as I sold my short-bed 1978 F150 4x4 in 1990, but that would have been a nice rig. With fairly high ground clearance and a lot of heavy components, it would have held a lot of batteries easily. Always a nice looking truck, it's a classic these days.
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Watch this video. It's general. But this is going to be a huge trend.

 
acbytesla said:
Watch this video. It's general. But this is going to be a huge trend.

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Interesting. I'm amused that a couple of the conversions shown are for the old swing-axle (pre-'68) VW pickups. I once had one of these as a work vehicle, and it has to be, hands down, the worst handling, worst riding vehicle ever, and deadly unsafe as well. I later had several of the later model microbuses, with double jointed axles, which were quite decent handling, no longer a threat to life on curves and windy bridges, but still death in a frontal crash. The trucks had a huge under-bed storage compartment and a true one ton rated carrying capacity, making them ideal for conversion, and my 66 got along with 43 horsepower. I'd pass on any truck before 1968, and hesitate on a later one, but I can see the allure.

So far all the conversions we're seeing are pretty exotic hot rods for the kind of people who characterize a BMW 2002 as underpowered. I'm waiting for the lukewarm or downright cool-rod market. My old Peugeots had 65 horsepower. My 71 VW bus had 60. A bit slow on hills, but they got along all right. Assuming a fairly straight kilowatts to horsepower conversion, I'd be happy run longer on lower horsepower. I don't need air conditioning or power seats. Decent brakes, a radio that works, and sure, why not power windows. The rest? Send it to the wheels.
 
My old Peugeot 306 GTi6 was  fast (for an ICE car) and a bit of a sleeper as it looked just like any other 306. But my bog-standard MG4, basic model, not the X-Power or even the ER, actually feels faster to me - in acceleration that is, not top speed, because that's limited.

I'm off on a 450 mile road trip in a few hours. It's a trip I did many times in the Peugeot, and in its predecessors. I'm actually looking forward to it much more than I did to driving it in my petrol cars, because the experience of the electric motor is just so much sweeter. Yes, I will have to spend about an hour and a half in total at charging stations, because the car has quite a short range and a top charging speed of only about 85 kw. But I'm even looking forward to that because it's nice to relax with a coffee every so often.

I can't be the only person to feel this about their electric car. (And if the charging time is too much then just £2,500 extra will buy you the model which is identical in every way but with 50-60 miles extra range and a top charging speed of 145 kw, which would cut that time to about 40 minutes in total.) Once the general public sees past the EV-hating propaganda and catches on, it's going to be like digital cameras or DVD players. Nobody is going to want to stick with 35 mm film or videotape.
 
malbui said:
There’s a 35 year old Renault 5 sitting in our barn up in the mountains that would be a perfect candidate for an EV conversion. When I’m on holiday up there in August I’ll do some googling and build a spreadsheet.
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I always thought that my Jaguar XJ-S would have been a fine candidate (had it not rusted away) for EV conversion. Plenty of space for batteries, front and/or back, no real need for immense amounts of power, already a wallowy old beastie and an even quieter ride.
 
Rolfe said:
I'm off on a 450 mile road trip in a few hours. It's a trip I did many times in the Peugeot, and in its predecessors. I'm actually looking forward to it much more than I did to driving it in my petrol cars, because the experience of the electric motor is just so much sweeter. Yes, I will have to spend about an hour and a half in total at charging stations, because the car has quite a short range and a top charging speed of only about 85 kw. But I'm even looking forward to that because it's nice to relax with a coffee every so often.
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We just returned from our first road trip in an EV. It was about 450 miles each way. I had my wife and our dog with us, so I was a bit conservative and planned for three stops along each way. On the way home though, I had more confidence as well as a desire to get home a little sooner, so we skipped the last stop. After all, I was sure that I would not have any issues charging at home.

Each stop was under 30 minutes. There was no issue finding places to charge, though planning ahead was important. I used Plug Share and ABRP to find places to stop with more than one place to charge just in case a station was down. And the frequent stops left me with at least 50 miles of remaining range at each stop. I entered each stop as a saved location in the car's navigation system which made it easier than using an app while driving.

We had no issues charging at any stop though it is a little annoying that some chargers require you to open their app. I set those up all the apps I might need in advance. At each charger, I tried to just tap my phone. That worked at most places where either the app or Google Pay paid for the session. But, a couple of places required using their app to scan a QR code.

Florida, in June, is extremely hot. While charging, the A/C in the car didn't work quite as well as it did on the road - likely because the car was using more of it to keep the battery cool. But, it never became uncomfortable even for our dog who really doesn't like heat.

High-speed DC charging is much more expensive than charging at home. I didn't do the math, but I suspect that we didn't save much over using gas. But, the trip was much nicer.

I have made the same trip probably 30 times previously in various ICE vehicles. I remember always arriving at my destination feeling tired and achy.

That wasn't the case this time. Stopping every hour or hour and a half surely helped. And our new car has a feature called Highway Driving Assist which basically drives for you on the highway (though it isn't hands free). But, I think that just the quieter, less stinky (no exhaust), and overall more refined experience of an EV ride had much to do with the trip being more relaxing and enjoyable.
 
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Rolfe said:
My old Peugeot 306 GTi6 was  fast (for an ICE car) and a bit of a sleeper as it looked just like any other 306. But my bog-standard MG4, basic model, not the X-Power or even the ER, actually feels faster to me - in acceleration that is, not top speed, because that's limited.

I'm off on a 450 mile road trip in a few hours. It's a trip I did many times in the Peugeot, and in its predecessors. I'm actually looking forward to it much more than I did to driving it in my petrol cars, because the experience of the electric motor is just so much sweeter. Yes, I will have to spend about an hour and a half in total at charging stations, because the car has quite a short range and a top charging speed of only about 85 kw. But I'm even looking forward to that because it's nice to relax with a coffee every so often.

I can't be the only person to feel this about their electric car. (And if the charging time is too much then just £2,500 extra will buy you the model which is identical in every way but with 50-60 miles extra range and a top charging speed of 145 kw, which would cut that time to about 40 minutes in total.) Once the general public sees past the EV-hating propaganda and catches on, it's going to be like digital cameras or DVD players. Nobody is going to want to stick with 35 mm film or videotape.
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Definitely enjoy driving in the Eniro over any ICE car I've owned, and probably the Leaf too
 
I just responded in another forum to a thread about how time consuming charging is for an EV on road trips.

cmaster said:
I like to find someone here to try this with me. You will drive the Tesla and I will drive a prius. Lets see who can make it to same destination provided leaving at the same exact time of departure.
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Road tripping is not necessarily a race for a lot of folks.

Recent data point: Saturday I did a round trip to Nashville, TN, 162 miles each way*. I charged to 100% in my 2022 Model 3 LR, which showed 307 miles of range on departure. Arriving in Nashville, I had in excess of 90 miles remaining. On the way home I stopped to charge at Mount Juliet, TN for 17 minutes to get home with a 15% cushion for $12.07 and got home with about 18% range left.

So, if life was a race, the hypothetical Prius driver would have gotten home 17 minutes sooner, assuming they didn’t choose to stop for a bathroom break and snack anyway. I’ll stipulate that some drivers are so driven that losing this race would be meaningful to them. And not disparaging them if on a longer trip, 20 to 30 minute breaks every 3 hours or so are problematic. But to us, they’re not.


*As an aside, I was headed to Nashville for the “No Kings” demonstration. Thousands of peaceful if vociferous protesters. Headed back home, lots of demonstrators lined the road.

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Only one shouted, “You need to sell that thing!”, but in a non threatening way, to which I responded, “I can’t afford to right now!”
 
jadebox said:
Not low-priced is right though. But, it is a really nice car
(though Ford calls it an SUV).
As the owner of a real Mustang, though, I can't think of the Mach E as a Mustang.
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Yeah, it's not. Lots of cars today are being referred to as SUVs that aren't. Tesla calls their Model X an SUV. It's definitely closer to being a SUV than a Mustang but it still isn't in my book.
 
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