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Re the "physical space" argument, battery-electric systems tend to come up a /lot/ heavier than an equivalent ICE drivetrain as I understand it, and are in diff

Re the "physical space" argument, battery-electric systems tend to come up a /lot/ heavier than an equivalent ICE drivetrain as I understand it, and are in different places in the vehicle. The engine/motor becomes smaller and lighter, the fueltank/batteries become larger and heavier. The mass balance and overall mass changes, which will change the vehicle's crash characteristics and handling. Agreed that they're not black-boxes and there's a lot of assumptions you can carry over, though. The NCAP rating of the donor vehicle won't be valid any more, but all that tells you is how well its siblings survived destructive testing - it's likely to perform similarly. TLDR: it's not quite that simple, but assuming you're not driving like an idiot it'll probably be fine.

bradknowles 7y ago
With regards to weight, my friends here in Austin (that run a company that specializes in ICE-to-BEV conversions) tell me that the most important thing is to maintain the relative distribution of weight between the front and rear wheels. Cars are designed to operate in a certain range of weights, as they get loaded with drivers, passengers, cargo, etc.... so long as the distribution is roughly the same, then the careful tuning of the suspension and handling, etc... should all still mostly work the same. Sure, it might be a bit more sluggish if it is significantly heavier, but that should be about it. You might b able to largely solve that problem by just putting some stronger springs in the suspension, which might already exist in the third party market for other people who are doing other kinds of work on the same type of vehicle. Of course, you’ve got to actually do the work to make it right, but keeping the same basic weight distribution will probably solve at least 80% of the problem. With regards to components being really heavy, consider that the engine and the transmission are two of the heaviest components in most any car. If you can eliminate those in your BEV conversion, that gives you quite a bit of weight to work with for the new heavy components.

bradknowles 7y ago

With regards to weight, my friends here in Austin (that run a company that specializes in ICE-to-BEV conversions) tell me that the most important thing is to maintain the relative distribution of weight between the front and rear wheels. Cars are designed to operate in a certain range of weights, as they get loaded with drivers, passengers, cargo, etc.... so long as the distribution is roughly the same, then the careful tuning of the suspension and handling, etc... should all still mostly work the same. Sure, it might be a bit more sluggish if it is significantly heavier, but that should be about it. You might b able to largely solve that problem by just putting some stronger springs in the suspension, which might already exist in the third party market for other people who are doing other kinds of work on the same type of vehicle. Of course, you’ve got to actually do the work to make it right, but keeping the same basic weight distribution will probably solve at least 80% of the problem. With regards to components being really heavy, consider that the engine and the transmission are two of the heaviest components in most any car. If you can eliminate those in your BEV conversion, that gives you quite a bit of weight to work with for the new heavy components.