4 ms·

The inverter/regen braking, and charger units do have some firmware, but once everything is wired up and working, should work indefinitely without future OTA up

The inverter/regen braking, and charger units do have some firmware, but once everything is wired up and working, should work indefinitely without future OTA updates. If the national charging standard changes at some point in the future (or gets exported to another area (europe) that uses a different standard) you'll need to swap out the charger. Companies like EV West in California and Swindon in the UK offer bolt-in kits for 1960s cars, in particular the VW Beetle and the original Cooper Mini Long term, as engine parts become harder to source, especially for low volume european cars, Electric Conversion is rapidly becoming the accepted way to keep these classics on the road for another 100 years.

hnov 5y ago
Engines like the VW typ 4 in the 914 are probably not going extinct anytime soon, you can order a ready to go longblock fairly easily [0]. For larger cars, a GM gen IV V8 can be had with CA-compliant emissions out of any parts catalog [1]. [0] https://scatvw.com/product/2-0-liter-long-block-24-875-779/ https://scatvw.com/product/2-0-liter-long-block-24-875-779/ [1] https://www.jegs.com/i/Chevrolet-Performance/809/19421057/10002/-1 https://www.jegs.com/i/Chevrolet-Performance/809/19421057/10...
- hadlock 5y ago
  Agreed; I suspect the reason why the VW has been targeted by EV makers is largely because the tuner/enthusiast crowd is quite large, and also it's an extremely well understood/documented platform. I haven't seen the EV West stuff up close in person yet, but it looks like as a platform to develop a set of standard equipment for other cars, the VW is a good initial choice for those reasons. I have a similarly size/weight prewar french car, and when the engine finally gives out, will probably pull out the petrol engine and swap in a VW kit, but with a custom bell housing adapter. A 70-100hp electric motor meant for a VW is not a lot of power, but can provide enough low end torque to keep the car driving in modern traffic for 100-130 miles, which is probably enough for the use classic cars get.

hnov 5y ago

Engines like the VW typ 4 in the 914 are probably not going extinct anytime soon, you can order a ready to go longblock fairly easily [0]. For larger cars, a GM gen IV V8 can be had with CA-compliant emissions out of any parts catalog [1]. [0] https://scatvw.com/product/2-0-liter-long-block-24-875-779/ https://scatvw.com/product/2-0-liter-long-block-24-875-779/ [1] https://www.jegs.com/i/Chevrolet-Performance/809/19421057/10002/-1 https://www.jegs.com/i/Chevrolet-Performance/809/19421057/10...

hadlock 5y ago
Agreed; I suspect the reason why the VW has been targeted by EV makers is largely because the tuner/enthusiast crowd is quite large, and also it's an extremely well understood/documented platform. I haven't seen the EV West stuff up close in person yet, but it looks like as a platform to develop a set of standard equipment for other cars, the VW is a good initial choice for those reasons. I have a similarly size/weight prewar french car, and when the engine finally gives out, will probably pull out the petrol engine and swap in a VW kit, but with a custom bell housing adapter. A 70-100hp electric motor meant for a VW is not a lot of power, but can provide enough low end torque to keep the car driving in modern traffic for 100-130 miles, which is probably enough for the use classic cars get.