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Why devalue a real classic car by converting it to an EV? The gas engine alone in a classic is 1/2 the value of the vehicle.
Quote:
Originally Posted by 28173
this conversion alone would remove the "classic car" name from any old car
Restomods replace the drivetrain all the time to make a more reliable vehicle that looks retro - they are still considered classic cars - why not use EV power to do this?
Then there is always the opposite, converting a newer EV to a nice V8 gas burner! I prefer my classic cars making noise and exhaust, but whatever you want to do is OK as long as you’re having fun.
That's one good point, at least it would look good. Many of the current crop of EV's look like the designers intentionally made them ugly.
One of those is not current (the Leaf), and the other two are in the minority of new EVs. If you're going to be insulting, at least be factual. "Many?" Ha. I actually like mine. Looks pretty normal:
An then there's cars like these:
Even that Leaf has been updated to be simply a modern hatchback:
Just remember, EVs have no need for a real grille, so a lot of these have grilles there to simply look like normal cars. But they have no need of looking like normal cars as they have no engines up front to over with a normal nose, and they have no need for grilles for big radiators. These things are simply there on EVs to make people like you comfortable with a completely different form of propulsion.
One of those is not current (the Leaf), and the other two are in the minority in of new EVs. If you're going to be insulting, at least be factual. "Many?" Ha. I actually like mine. Looks pretty normal:
An then there's cars like these:
Even that Leaf has been updated to be simply a modern hatchback:
Just remember, EVs have no need for a real grille, so a lot of these have grilles there to simply look like normal cars. But they have no need of looking like normal cars as they have no engines up front to over with a normal nose, and they have no need for grilles for big radiators. These things are simply there on EVs to make people like you comfortable with a completely different form of propulsion.
Question. Doesn’t some EVs have a liquid cooling system for the battery? Would t there need to be some form of air grill at least for cabin ventilation?
Question. Doesn’t some EVs have a liquid cooling system for the battery? Would t there need to be some form of air grill at least for cabin ventilation?
Cabin ventilation can be (and is) taken from the high pressure area at the base of the windshield (where most cars take it from). There is no need for really any other grille work, or if there is, it's pretty minor, as most EVs have proven so far. You'll note that EV grilles tend to be fake (though to be fair, most modern large grilles on gas cars are mostly fake, too)
I wish I had the money to convert a Pre-2000 Mazda Miata. I daily drove a '94 in 2012-2013. It's my second favorite of my many cars to my Model 3. I will most likely own one again some day.
I think one interesting direction to go on this is with in-wheel hub motors.
Electric motors have really high power density and for a very cheap price and that's why we're seeing so many EVs with incredibly high power output. Motors are also very efficient without much room left for further efficiency within the motor itself. Where they do have more room to improve is lower costs and even greater power density by volume and by weight. I think with that, it would be interesting to see how hub motors get factored in as they're very efficient in terms of mechanical loss since they'd deliver power straight to where it's needed and can yield interesting new options for converting FWD vehicles to RWD or AWD or RWD to FWD or AWD as well as some interesting torque vectoring possibilities that would otherwise be much more difficult in a restomod. The Achille's Heel would be the unsprung weight and that's where the possibility of even greater power density by weight can come in. Fix that up and get them even cheaper alongside battery improvements, and we're maybe looking at opening things up for some very interesting conversions accessible to more people.
I think one interesting direction to go on this is with in-wheel hub motors.
Electric motors have really high power density and for a very cheap price and that's why we're seeing so many EVs with incredibly high power output. Motors are also very efficient without much room left for further efficiency within the motor itself. Where they do have more room to improve is lower costs and even greater power density by volume and by weight. I think with that, it would be interesting to see how hub motors get factored in as they're very efficient in terms of mechanical loss since they'd deliver power straight to where it's needed and can yield interesting new options for converting FWD vehicles to RWD or AWD or RWD to FWD or AWD as well as some interesting torque vectoring possibilities that would otherwise be much more difficult in a restomod. The Achille's Heel would be the unsprung weight and that's where the possibility of even greater power density by weight can come in. Fix that up and get them even cheaper alongside battery improvements, and we're maybe looking at opening things up for some very interesting conversions accessible to more people.
Would that be for one wheel or both wheels in either the front or the rear? For a micro car like the Metro, Spark, etc I could see one wheel with the rest being battery and upgraded suspension to handle the extra weight. If regenerative braking is included then no need to upgrade brakes. If no regenerative braking then all brakes would have to be upgraded as well as the size of the tires and rims to handle the extra weight. If you want power steering then it would have to be modified to an electric steering system since older vehicles with power steering had hydraulic. A small light weight ICE car could get away without power steering. Adding the batteries in place of the engine and transmission may increase body weight making steering difficult at low speeds.
Would that be for one wheel or both wheels in either the front or the rear? For a micro car like the Metro, Spark, etc I could see one wheel with the rest being battery and upgraded suspension to handle the extra weight. If regenerative braking is included then no need to upgrade brakes. If no regenerative braking then all brakes would have to be upgraded as well as the size of the tires and rims to handle the extra weight. If you want power steering then it would have to be modified to an electric steering system since older vehicles with power steering had hydraulic. A small light weight ICE car could get away without power steering. Adding the batteries in place of the engine and transmission may increase body weight making steering difficult at low speeds.
For hub motors, it'd have to be for at least two wheels as you can't (or at least shouldn't) have it be lopsided where driver side has one motor, but the passenger side does not or vice versa. So the options would be two motors on each of the front wheels, two motors on each of the back wheels, or four motors on each wheel. You can potentially do hub motors for one set of wheels (back wheels for instance) and then a single conventionally mounted wheels driving the axle (on the front wheels for instance). That'd be interesting as then you can preserve a lot of the mechanicals of the original vehicle, but still bump it to AWD with torque vectoring.
You do want to make use of regenerative braking if possible and in-wheel hub motors can do that, so that's nice.
The batteries are tricky for now. You sort of want to assess how much range you want and where you want to put the batteries. I've seen EV restomods where they opt for smaller battery packs and mounted in a way so that the weight distribution and total weight after conversion are about the same, but given where energy density is now, that generally means lower range EVs. About one more doubling of energy density though would likely fix that though.
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