Last updated on May 7th, 2021 at 10:45 pm
“More or less anything can be converted,” explains Steve Drummond, Director of Electrogenic. “The biggest problem is physically fitting the batteries, so a very small car makes compromises on range. So is big square and heavy, which will be better for cruising at 50-60 than 70mph.”
Richard Morgan, Director of Electric Classic Cars suggests that you should start with what your requirements are. “Do you want a two-seater sports car for summer or do you want a daily driver?” he asks. “Do you need back seats? Do you want to be able to tinker with it or just get in and drive?” Morgan also recommends a manual donor car rather than automatic, arguing that the classic auto boxes sometimes can’t cope with the immediate torque of an electric engine.
Electrogenic converts a lot of minis, whilst ECC does a lot of Fiat 500s. Both find air-cooled VWs such as Beetles and camper vans are popular, as well as Land Rover Defenders. The latter are particularly easy to work on, as they have loads of room inside. In fact, ECC is currently working on equipping a Defender with 200kWh of batteries weighing 900kg on their own, which should provide a range of over 300 miles. However, since Defenders can cope with a gross vehicle weight of 3.1 tonnes, this isn’t a problem. Morgan stresses that you need to work within the gross weight of the donor car, because otherwise the conversion would be illegal. Drummond told us that it was possible to fit up to 30 Tesla batteries in its “Marmite” VW camper van pickup, giving 159kWh of capacity.
Drummond says that you want to start with a car with good bodywork, running gear and gearbox. Getting a car that needs a lot of work in these areas will really push your costs up, because the whole thing will need to be fully restored, rather than just the conversion, and getting rid of lots of rust is expensive. Morgan explains that the Fiat 500 is a great starter option because you can find them for under £8,000, so your primary cost is the electric running gear. Both Electrogenic and ECC can help with sourcing if you don’t want to bother with this yourself.
Drummond also explains that you must be careful to avoid changing too much about the car, otherwise DVLA rules will mean the car needs to go through homologation – a lengthy and expensive process. So Electrogenic doesn’t touch the chassis, suspension, or (usually) the drive system. To retain the original registration, a vehicle must have eight or more points according to the DVLA’s system, where the chassis counts for 5, whilst suspension, axles, transmission and steering count for 2 each. Removing the engine loses just one point, so swapping this for an electric one will be fine. However, you can switch to direct drive, losing the transmission, and still comfortably make up 8 points.
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