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Unless your comment was sarcastic, I think you read in a diagonal. Read the previous comment thoroughly please: > EV conversion on an existing ICE car EV con

Unless your comment was sarcastic, I think you read in a diagonal. Read the previous comment thoroughly please: > EV conversion on an existing ICE car EV conversion, meaning the motor would be electric as well...

locallost 4y ago
I wasn't being sarcastic, but I don't think the author is stupid and I don't need to beat it into the ground. The phrasing and logic was just weird to me, I don't think it's viable at all if you need to replace the entire insides of the car + paying somebody to do it. It will surely be in the same ballpark to just buy a new electric car.
- theshrike79 4y ago
  You can buy a EV crate motor for about $4500: https://www.fordracingbyspeedshopdirect.com/ELUMINATOR_MACH_E_ELECTRIC_MOTOR_p/M-9000-MACHE.htm https://www.fordracingbyspeedshopdirect.com/ELUMINATOR_MACH_... You do need a battery and the rest of the electronics too. But it's only a matter of time when you start seeing 100% drop-in replacements for classic cars.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - elihu 4y ago
    Is there even a motor controller (i.e. inverter) available for that motor?
- elihu 4y ago
  Batteries are often the hardest part of a conversion, because you need to find a place to put them. The motor can be relatively straightforward, especially if you can just pull out the engine and replace it with a motor using the appropriate adapter and keep the rest of the drivetrain as-is. (CanEV makes bell-housing motor adapters and driveshaft-to-flywheel couplers for a wide range of vehicles.) A lot of stuff you can just tear out, and that's pretty easy. Exhaust, gas tank, probably the radiator, and so on. EV conversions don't make financial sense right now because it's usually about $20,000 worth of parts plus a lot of labor to design and build a one-of-a-kind thing. That could change, though. All it would take is some big manufacturer to produce a low-cost kit to convert a common vehicle to an EV, with proper integration into all the existing systems so you can just plug stuff in and have it work. If you don't have to do any structural modifications to the original car and it's just a matter of swapping parts, I could imagine something where a typical mechanic could do an EV conversion in a week or less. And that would be a huge shift. Maybe EV conversion could start to be an economically-sensible thing to do. Most people who want a new car would just buy a new car, but it would be good to have more options available.
  - locallost 4y ago
    Easy is relative. I recently bought a used bicycle whose owner switched to electric. He said he initially looked into a conversion, but the quote he got was in the 1500-2000 range which was pretty much the same cost of the same model just electric. So it was a no-brainer to get a new one. Now, you can get solid conversion kits for under a 1000, and it's a bike so it's much simpler than a car, and therefore actually kind of easy, but what the bike shop wanted was to make money for their time and they of course take the responsibility that it actually works correctly and all of this costs money. And you can do it yourself if you can, but most people wouldn't bother for a bike, let alone a car. There's a whole bunch of reasons why I think this is not very realistic. But of course people can try and succeed if they want and are able to, no harm there.
    - elihu 4y ago
      I think if the parts were cheap and no special engineering was required, there would be a lot more people doing conversions. (And a lot of local shops that would do it for you if you paid them.) New EVs might outnumber converted EVs 100:1, but even that would be huge. Right now hardly anyone does it because it's super hard and pretty expensive. It just doesn't make financial sense. (I'm currently in the process of converting a Mazda RX-8, using a Netgain Hyper9 in place of the original engine with the transmission kept as-is, and about 400 pounds or so of lithium iron phosphate batteries.)
- adrianN 4y ago
  People don't modify their cars to save money.
  - sgt 4y ago
    Right - if you put an LS motor into your car or an electric drivetrain, it's either for the challenge, for more performance or just for the fun of it.
- alex_duf 4y ago
  It's enough of a possibility that there are start-ups working on the concept https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98mlJ1N50DU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98mlJ1N50DU

locallost 4y ago

I wasn't being sarcastic, but I don't think the author is stupid and I don't need to beat it into the ground. The phrasing and logic was just weird to me, I don't think it's viable at all if you need to replace the entire insides of the car + paying somebody to do it. It will surely be in the same ballpark to just buy a new electric car.

theshrike79 4y ago
You can buy a EV crate motor for about $4500: https://www.fordracingbyspeedshopdirect.com/ELUMINATOR_MACH_E_ELECTRIC_MOTOR_p/M-9000-MACHE.htm https://www.fordracingbyspeedshopdirect.com/ELUMINATOR_MACH_... You do need a battery and the rest of the electronics too. But it's only a matter of time when you start seeing 100% drop-in replacements for classic cars.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- elihu 4y ago
  Is there even a motor controller (i.e. inverter) available for that motor?
elihu 4y ago
Batteries are often the hardest part of a conversion, because you need to find a place to put them. The motor can be relatively straightforward, especially if you can just pull out the engine and replace it with a motor using the appropriate adapter and keep the rest of the drivetrain as-is. (CanEV makes bell-housing motor adapters and driveshaft-to-flywheel couplers for a wide range of vehicles.) A lot of stuff you can just tear out, and that's pretty easy. Exhaust, gas tank, probably the radiator, and so on. EV conversions don't make financial sense right now because it's usually about $20,000 worth of parts plus a lot of labor to design and build a one-of-a-kind thing. That could change, though. All it would take is some big manufacturer to produce a low-cost kit to convert a common vehicle to an EV, with proper integration into all the existing systems so you can just plug stuff in and have it work. If you don't have to do any structural modifications to the original car and it's just a matter of swapping parts, I could imagine something where a typical mechanic could do an EV conversion in a week or less. And that would be a huge shift. Maybe EV conversion could start to be an economically-sensible thing to do. Most people who want a new car would just buy a new car, but it would be good to have more options available.
- locallost 4y ago
  Easy is relative. I recently bought a used bicycle whose owner switched to electric. He said he initially looked into a conversion, but the quote he got was in the 1500-2000 range which was pretty much the same cost of the same model just electric. So it was a no-brainer to get a new one. Now, you can get solid conversion kits for under a 1000, and it's a bike so it's much simpler than a car, and therefore actually kind of easy, but what the bike shop wanted was to make money for their time and they of course take the responsibility that it actually works correctly and all of this costs money. And you can do it yourself if you can, but most people wouldn't bother for a bike, let alone a car. There's a whole bunch of reasons why I think this is not very realistic. But of course people can try and succeed if they want and are able to, no harm there.
  - elihu 4y ago
    I think if the parts were cheap and no special engineering was required, there would be a lot more people doing conversions. (And a lot of local shops that would do it for you if you paid them.) New EVs might outnumber converted EVs 100:1, but even that would be huge. Right now hardly anyone does it because it's super hard and pretty expensive. It just doesn't make financial sense. (I'm currently in the process of converting a Mazda RX-8, using a Netgain Hyper9 in place of the original engine with the transmission kept as-is, and about 400 pounds or so of lithium iron phosphate batteries.)
adrianN 4y ago
People don't modify their cars to save money.
- sgt 4y ago
  Right - if you put an LS motor into your car or an electric drivetrain, it's either for the challenge, for more performance or just for the fun of it.
alex_duf 4y ago
It's enough of a possibility that there are start-ups working on the concept https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98mlJ1N50DU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98mlJ1N50DU