>Wouldn't the advantage of being able to cruise at low RPMs massively increase range with the same size battery? Not really. An electric motor does not lose m

>Wouldn't the advantage of being able to cruise at low RPMs massively increase range with the same size battery? Not really. An electric motor does not lose much efficiency with increased speed. >And wouldn't not replacing the transmission result in lower costs for the retrofit? In a longitudinal application it would be cost neutral to retain a manual transmission. In any application it would be dumb to keep an automatic transmission. In a longitudinal application replacing any transmission is as easy as a couple carrier bearings and a different drive shaft. If I was really trying to cut cost but perform a large volume of conversions on FWD cars with transverse mounted engines (i.e. basically all FWD cars) and automatic transmissions I'd keep the transmission housings but replace all the clutches, planetaries, etc with a single solid shaft. While machined parts are expensive they're still cheaper than coming up with another solution for the differential.