3 ms·
I wonder if it is possible to retrofit a LHD to an RHD?
by weinzierl 4y ago
I wonder if it is possible to retrofit a LHD to an RHD?
- techwiz137 4y agoSure, but why? Is there a benefit? I know many people who buy cheap RHD cars to convert to LHD. Especially for luxury brands.
- johnwalkr 3y agoThis works for the case of a car designed for LHD and RHD with junkyard LHD parts available, if there RHD version happens to be cheap enough. Unlikely to work in the other direction, especially for a car that has no RHD parts available.
- mschuster91 4y agoVery, very difficult if the vehicle frame and engine bay hasn't been designed for that - stuff like cutouts for the steering wheel and pedals are difficult to retrofit.
- yardie 4y agoI’m not sure on the S and X. I have a LHD 3. The cutouts are clearly there under the passenger side dash. But you would need to replace a lot of parts: steering column, pedals, wiring harness, dash. From what I understand the S is quite convoluted under the frunk than the 3/Y . So building a RHD S is a lot more laborous than a 3/Y.
- johnwalkr 4y agoAnd if the vehicle isn’t made in a LHD variant then you’d have to make a dash from scratch, which maybe isn’t legal or at least is a liability if airbags are involved. The only similar thing I recall is this[1] way of “importing” an Australian Holden ute to America. It wouldn’t be worth it if you could legally just import the RHD version and would be impossible in the case of a Tesla where there wouldn’t be a local car made on the same platform.
- plantain 4y agoAustralia basically prohibits any kind of LHD on the road, even rare classic imports. As a result there is a small industry that will convert your import to RHD for you - pricetag is ~100kUSD per car.