I would be very interested in something like this, and would be fine with removing the engine entirely. On my old car the only thing that would still need to be turned would be the AC compressor....
I would be very interested in something like this, and would be fine with removing the engine entirely. On my old car the only thing that would still need to be turned would be the AC compressor. The heater and vacuum pump for the brake booster could likely just be handled electrically, so it would leave a ton of room for battery. Adding in the tire well mounted battery could make for some excellent weight distribution. I doubt they'd target my specific model of Civic anywhere near the beginning, but ten years from now I'd be very open to the idea of converting it to electric.
I mean, if you're willing to lose the engine and gas tank, going full EV, you can do that now. The range is typically not that great though, usually topping out under 100 miles. Probably better...
I mean, if you're willing to lose the engine and gas tank, going full EV, you can do that now.
The range is typically not that great though, usually topping out under 100 miles.
Probably better off just getting a used Nissan Leaf.
I think I'm just drawn to this design of using the existing hubs and knuckles because it simplifies the fabrication versus the other hub motors I've seen. It's a nice thought to get hub motors...
I think I'm just drawn to this design of using the existing hubs and knuckles because it simplifies the fabrication versus the other hub motors I've seen. It's a nice thought to get hub motors without having to redesign parts of the car that seriously affect its safety at speed. Whether it will actually work well or not, we'll see.
If I were going to do it now I'd probably go with something like Swindon's HPD E series where you're really just worrying about mounting and half shafts, but ya... expensive. Very very expensive. By the time everything was set up the conversion would cost 10x what I paid to buy the car and getting it running nicely in the first place.
A used Nissan Leaf is absolutely the right way to go at the moment for a reasonably-priced electric car.
If you've got something older and rear wheel drive, Tremec (a longtime transmission manufacturer) announced this during SEMA last month. A drop in electric conversion that fits where a normal RWD...
If you've got something older and rear wheel drive, Tremec (a longtime transmission manufacturer) announced this during SEMA last month. A drop in electric conversion that fits where a normal RWD transmission would go.
That's a very slick conversion, and should be easier that many I've seen since its basically just taking up the space of a regular transmission. Wonder if they'll release a price?
That's a very slick conversion, and should be easier that many I've seen since its basically just taking up the space of a regular transmission. Wonder if they'll release a price?
Previous discussion: https://tild.es/1b7p I reiterate my excitement in that thread not only as the idea of a PHEV retrofit, but as a performance improvement for those of us with a need for speed....
I reiterate my excitement in that thread not only as the idea of a PHEV retrofit, but as a performance improvement for those of us with a need for speed. This article has more specifics about the motor and battery, but as an expansion on my other comment:
50kW motor is 67hp, double it for two wheels and you're at 134hp, a 15kWh battery should be somewhere in the range of 100kg. Even adding another 50kg with motors, wiring, etc and I'm still on board to slap one on my racecar to make it an on-demand AWD.
New EVs get the headlines, but PHEV is the actual and realistic way forward to meet the goals of cars using less fossil fuels and a retrofit kit can keep older vehicles on the road, using less energy/pollution to do so, and less energy/pollution than building a new car.
I've been thinking how cool it would be to retromod my 944S2 into a PHEV. This would be pretty awesome to add 134 HP to a car already probably weighing about 2800lb while also making it AWD.
I've been thinking how cool it would be to retromod my 944S2 into a PHEV. This would be pretty awesome to add 134 HP to a car already probably weighing about 1800lb 2800lb while also making it AWD.
Will find out once it's finished, but my race car should be around that between all the weight savings from removal of most stock non-body components and addition of a cage. Hoping for 2,700lbs,...
Will find out once it's finished, but my race car should be around that between all the weight savings from removal of most stock non-body components and addition of a cage. Hoping for 2,700lbs, will be happy with 2,800 or so, not bad considering it rolled off the factory floor at 3,400.
I mean, that's a no-brainer...pop the spare on the back like the Jeep Wrangler. If you live in a somewhat dense area, I suppose you could rely on AAA, but the country boy in me gets heart...
we see the spare tire being removed entirely – however, it's up to the customer what they want to do.
I mean, that's a no-brainer...pop the spare on the back like the Jeep Wrangler. If you live in a somewhat dense area, I suppose you could rely on AAA, but the country boy in me gets heart palpitations at the idea of not having a fullsize spare.
That said, this is seriously cool. Cost/benefit is iffier on newer cars that bottom out at 20 mpg. I've got a 2021 Subaru Outback, which gets about 25 mpg in realworld driving. Assuming a $5k market price, I'd probably expect an uplift of about 10mpg. At 10 mpg uplift, with my annual milage around 8k, I'd expect to save about 100 gallons of gas annually, so about $400 a year...which means more than 10 years payback time. Thats a bit of a steep cost.
It's mitigated a bit by potentially reducing my ICE usage to 0 outside of long highway trips, which would do wonders for engine longevity.
So I'd class this as "A great retrofit for anybody looking to get more life out of a car older than 2010."
That said....this also seems like a highly risky aftermarket part....I forsee it having trouble with regulators. Not having solved the gas pedal problem is quite problematic.
The gas pedal problem would presumably be solvable with tapping into the OBD port as it reports throttle position already. Regulation is certainly going to be a hurdle in AUS and EU, but with...
The gas pedal problem would presumably be solvable with tapping into the OBD port as it reports throttle position already.
Regulation is certainly going to be a hurdle in AUS and EU, but with regulations few and far between in the US there could be quite the easy entry market for it here.
I haven't had a full-sized spare in my entire life. I'd personally prefer not to drive a car without a donut, but they're exceedingly normal in the U.S. I think the number of drivers there are in...
I haven't had a full-sized spare in my entire life. I'd personally prefer not to drive a car without a donut, but they're exceedingly normal in the U.S. I think the number of drivers there are in our country who cannot change a tire is much higher than you would expect. The number who has never had to change a tire is also surprisingly high.
I think it could work on some cars. Some (most?) cars have accelerator pedal position available on the CAN bus, so that would solve that issue. Manual transmissions should be fine. Automatics on...
I think it could work on some cars. Some (most?) cars have accelerator pedal position available on the CAN bus, so that would solve that issue.
Manual transmissions should be fine. Automatics on the other hand don't like being towed in neutral because the fluid pump isn't running to keep things lubricated.
CANbus in cars is relatively new, non-required, and wasn't present in the 2001 Corolla he's prototyping on. OBDII/EOBD is a requirement though and has been since the mid-90s.
CANbus in cars is relatively new, non-required, and wasn't present in the 2001 Corolla he's prototyping on. OBDII/EOBD is a requirement though and has been since the mid-90s.
I really like the idea, but Im highly skeptical of the price and the range estimates. My tiny 2015 Fiat 500e is fully electric with a 24 kWh battery and summertime range is about 120 km but (very...
I really like the idea, but Im highly skeptical of the price and the range estimates. My tiny 2015 Fiat 500e is fully electric with a 24 kWh battery and summertime range is about 120 km but (very cold) winter time drops to as little as 70 km. If a 15 kWh battery and all the other components and motors were added to something like a Honda Civic, it would be considerably heavier than my Fiat which means range drops even further in cold weather. Its a hybrid so you can always use the gas engine, but ranges of 40 km in winter have to have a pretty specific use case to be financially feasible.
But the killer is the estimated $3200 price for all those components? Thats seems ludicrously low. I doubt they could get this all sourced for ten times that amount given the amount of R&D and cost of components to say nothing of installation labor. There are several companies that have tried to retrofit classic and modern cars and NONE of them are anywhere close to reasonably priced, and almost all fail within a few years because only the rich can afford to take on a project like this. The advantage this company would have is that they could build a kit for a particular car and take a lot of the custom fabrication out of the picture, but batteries, motors and controllers are expensive add ons.
I would be very interested in something like this, and would be fine with removing the engine entirely. On my old car the only thing that would still need to be turned would be the AC compressor. The heater and vacuum pump for the brake booster could likely just be handled electrically, so it would leave a ton of room for battery. Adding in the tire well mounted battery could make for some excellent weight distribution. I doubt they'd target my specific model of Civic anywhere near the beginning, but ten years from now I'd be very open to the idea of converting it to electric.
I mean, if you're willing to lose the engine and gas tank, going full EV, you can do that now.
The range is typically not that great though, usually topping out under 100 miles.
Probably better off just getting a used Nissan Leaf.
I think I'm just drawn to this design of using the existing hubs and knuckles because it simplifies the fabrication versus the other hub motors I've seen. It's a nice thought to get hub motors without having to redesign parts of the car that seriously affect its safety at speed. Whether it will actually work well or not, we'll see.
If I were going to do it now I'd probably go with something like Swindon's HPD E series where you're really just worrying about mounting and half shafts, but ya... expensive. Very very expensive. By the time everything was set up the conversion would cost 10x what I paid to buy the car and getting it running nicely in the first place.
A used Nissan Leaf is absolutely the right way to go at the moment for a reasonably-priced electric car.
If you've got something older and rear wheel drive, Tremec (a longtime transmission manufacturer) announced this during SEMA last month. A drop in electric conversion that fits where a normal RWD transmission would go.
That's a very slick conversion, and should be easier that many I've seen since its basically just taking up the space of a regular transmission. Wonder if they'll release a price?
Previous discussion: https://tild.es/1b7p
I reiterate my excitement in that thread not only as the idea of a PHEV retrofit, but as a performance improvement for those of us with a need for speed. This article has more specifics about the motor and battery, but as an expansion on my other comment:
50kW motor is 67hp, double it for two wheels and you're at 134hp, a 15kWh battery should be somewhere in the range of 100kg. Even adding another 50kg with motors, wiring, etc and I'm still on board to slap one on my racecar to make it an on-demand AWD.
New EVs get the headlines, but PHEV is the actual and realistic way forward to meet the goals of cars using less fossil fuels and a retrofit kit can keep older vehicles on the road, using less energy/pollution to do so, and less energy/pollution than building a new car.
I've been thinking how cool it would be to retromod my 944S2 into a PHEV. This would be pretty awesome to add 134 HP to a car already probably weighing about
1800lb2800lb while also making it AWD.You're off by about 1,000lbs on the weight of the 944S2 (1,800lbs is less than a Miata), but yes 134hp extra and AWD is awesome.
You're right, typoed that, though it's a bit lighter than stock with fiberclass fenders, hood, cruise control, and AC removed.
Will find out once it's finished, but my race car should be around that between all the weight savings from removal of most stock non-body components and addition of a cage. Hoping for 2,700lbs, will be happy with 2,800 or so, not bad considering it rolled off the factory floor at 3,400.
I mean, that's a no-brainer...pop the spare on the back like the Jeep Wrangler. If you live in a somewhat dense area, I suppose you could rely on AAA, but the country boy in me gets heart palpitations at the idea of not having a fullsize spare.
That said, this is seriously cool. Cost/benefit is iffier on newer cars that bottom out at 20 mpg. I've got a 2021 Subaru Outback, which gets about 25 mpg in realworld driving. Assuming a $5k market price, I'd probably expect an uplift of about 10mpg. At 10 mpg uplift, with my annual milage around 8k, I'd expect to save about 100 gallons of gas annually, so about $400 a year...which means more than 10 years payback time. Thats a bit of a steep cost.
It's mitigated a bit by potentially reducing my ICE usage to 0 outside of long highway trips, which would do wonders for engine longevity.
So I'd class this as "A great retrofit for anybody looking to get more life out of a car older than 2010."
That said....this also seems like a highly risky aftermarket part....I forsee it having trouble with regulators. Not having solved the gas pedal problem is quite problematic.
The gas pedal problem would presumably be solvable with tapping into the OBD port as it reports throttle position already.
Regulation is certainly going to be a hurdle in AUS and EU, but with regulations few and far between in the US there could be quite the easy entry market for it here.
I haven't had a full-sized spare in my entire life. I'd personally prefer not to drive a car without a donut, but they're exceedingly normal in the U.S. I think the number of drivers there are in our country who cannot change a tire is much higher than you would expect. The number who has never had to change a tire is also surprisingly high.
I think it could work on some cars. Some (most?) cars have accelerator pedal position available on the CAN bus, so that would solve that issue.
Manual transmissions should be fine. Automatics on the other hand don't like being towed in neutral because the fluid pump isn't running to keep things lubricated.
CANbus in cars is relatively new, non-required, and wasn't present in the 2001 Corolla he's prototyping on. OBDII/EOBD is a requirement though and has been since the mid-90s.
Thanks for the correction. I confused the two. I have pedal position available over OBDII on my 2000 ford focus.
I really like the idea, but Im highly skeptical of the price and the range estimates. My tiny 2015 Fiat 500e is fully electric with a 24 kWh battery and summertime range is about 120 km but (very cold) winter time drops to as little as 70 km. If a 15 kWh battery and all the other components and motors were added to something like a Honda Civic, it would be considerably heavier than my Fiat which means range drops even further in cold weather. Its a hybrid so you can always use the gas engine, but ranges of 40 km in winter have to have a pretty specific use case to be financially feasible.
But the killer is the estimated $3200 price for all those components? Thats seems ludicrously low. I doubt they could get this all sourced for ten times that amount given the amount of R&D and cost of components to say nothing of installation labor. There are several companies that have tried to retrofit classic and modern cars and NONE of them are anywhere close to reasonably priced, and almost all fail within a few years because only the rich can afford to take on a project like this. The advantage this company would have is that they could build a kit for a particular car and take a lot of the custom fabrication out of the picture, but batteries, motors and controllers are expensive add ons.