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This is exactly the kind of thing I wanted to do for common light goods vehicles in the UK - the Vivaro and Trafic vans. They are great apart from the gearboxe
by djaychela 7y ago
This is exactly the kind of thing I wanted to do for common light goods vehicles in the UK - the Vivaro and Trafic vans. They are great apart from the gearboxes, and of course the engines are ICE. You could replace the engine and gearbox with a motor, and there's a HUGE amount of space under the van for a battery pack to give it a good range, with strong mounting onto the chassis possible. Lots of these vans do very little mileage, just working locally - think of the pollution that would be reduced in London, for instance.
The problem was that I priced it up, and it would cost about £20k for a conversion, which obviously isn't going to happen. If you could get it do say £5-7k, then anyone with one of these who's faced with a new gearbox being needed, or needs the injectors replaced and they're seized in place because the scuttle under the windscreen leaks water onto the engine (which can be a £2k + bill) might think it was worth doing.
However, I'm also sure that the insurance situation would need looking at - it's effectively a different vehicle and you've definitely had it modified.
Another one of my pie-in-the-sky ideas, but I'm sure it'll be financially doable at some point, and given that the Vivaro had a 12-year model lifespan and didn't suffer from rust, there are plenty of them about.
- jdboyd 7y agoI wonder what that £20k would turn in to if you could commit to your suppliers that you would be buying a thousand units worth? What about only 100 units worth?
- ChrisRR 7y agoI would guess that it's mostly labour. Unless you could get a fleet of identical cars or vans, then every vehicle is going to be a bespoke job, slowing things down.
- karambahh 7y agoTrafic/Vivaro are the same car, jointly produced by Open/Vauxhall & Renault so economies of scale could be found. https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renault_Trafic_III_-_Fiat_Talento_II_-_Nissan_NV300_-_Opel_Vivaro_II https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renault_Trafic_III_-_Fiat_Tale...
- lstodd 7y agoIt's front wheel drive. Assuming new drive units come complete with everything but wheels, the change would take about an hour or two. EDIT: esp since you can just use an angle grinder on the old pack
- djaychela 7y agoMy 'plan' was thought of because the Trafic/Vivaro/Primastar are all the same van, and the labour wouldn't be much - getting the engine and gearbox out can be done in a couple of hours when you're using a ramp, and if the conversion kit was intelligently made to pick up on the same mounting points as the standard engine/transmission then it would fit back in really quickly. The same powertrain is also used in their larger models - Master/Movano (can't think of the Nissan one), so that would also be another market. The labour would be minimal compared to the cost of the batteries.
- djaychela 7y agoTBH I never found out - even doing a one-off is beyond me financially, so it's not something I bothered pursuing. I'd imagine you could get a good cost reduction on the parts if you were committed to volume, but no matter what the batteries to give it a worthwhile range would be the lion's share of the cost. My van has a 700+ mile range on diesel (it gives me about 40mpg on a run), and while you wouldn't get that, I think lots would want 300 mile range before they'd consider it as most workmen do a fair mileage.
- shoes_for_thee 7y agoWhy bother replacing the gearbox?
- Nasrudith 7y agoBecause there is no need to transmit power mechanically when you can stick wires to electric motors and drive directly to reduce complexity, improve efficency, and save weight.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- dsfyu404ed 7y agoBecause an automatic transmission is just a waste with the power "curve" of an electric motor. An automatic transmission basically replaces the function of a clutch by letting you put power to the wheels at super low rpm while keeping the engine spinning a decent rpm. An electric motor does not need this, it is just wasted energy in that application. Some sort of direct gearbox with multiple speeds would probably be useful in a work vehicle application. However, one from an automotive application would be totally overkill because an electric motor's power band is too wide to need more than two or maybe three widely spaced gears. A purpose built high/low gearbox (like on a drill) would be better. Sure, you can always spec a bigger motor but that has trade-offs. Most early EV conversions had fairly low horsepower motors and retained the manual transmission and used it to avoid overheating the motor when leaving a stop wide open (which you did most of the time when you only had ~50hp). Obviously that's a non-issue with the higher power motors that are commonly used today.
- shoes_for_thee 7y agoWouldn't the advantage of being able to cruise at low RPMs massively increase range with the same size battery? And wouldn't not replacing the transmission result in lower costs for the retrofit? If the upfront cost of a retrofit is the major hurdle preventing adoption, then reducing complexity of the retrofit would seem more important than reducing overall complexity of the drivetrain... particularly since you'll still be better-than-parity complexity following an electric retrofit. I understand the non-trivial power-loss of connecting a motor to a transmission, but to me this seems like an acceptable trade... particularly as someone who enjoys rowing through my gears.