Last updated on May 7th, 2021 at 10:45 pm
Once you’ve found your donor car, there is a huge range of options regarding how you electrify it. As well as doing the conversion for you, ECC can sell you the bits you need to do it yourself, which provides a good idea of the possibilities. A 47bhp HPEV AC20 motor costs £3,593 and a 120bhp Netgain Hyper 9 engine with 230nm of torque is £4,580. The latter can be installed as an in-line pair for twice the performance. It’s also possible to add more via pulleys, although this isn’t recommended. All of these operate through your existing gearbox, so are essentially a replacement for the petrol engine. However, the gearbox might need some modification. Electrogenic’s Drummond told us his Beetle has had first, second and reverse removed by Bears Motorsport, with third and fourth altered, to give a simpler, smoother drive and a 120mph top speed – which is pretty stratospheric for VW Beetle.
Instead of more than two Hyper 9s, the next rung up is to use Tesla drivetrains, which require more work on the car in many ways. Electrogenic doesn’t do this conversion so often, or recommend it except for very specialised projects, because Tesla motors operate at 400V, so you need enough batteries to supply this and more expensive wiring. Each Tesla battery provides a maximum of 25.2V, so at least 16 Tesla batteries are required. But ECC estimates around £8,000 for a “small” 350bhp Tesla setup, or £10,000 for a “large” 450bhp motor and £15,000 for 600bhp. A Tesla conversion would set you back £30-35,000 in total.
The next major consideration is batteries, and most conversions will use Tesla ones because, as Electrogenic’s Drummond admits, “Tesla makes the best batteries.” These come from crashed Teslas, because Tesla won’t sell them new, so they will typically have around 25,000 miles on them. Given that they’re rated for 200,000 miles, this isn’t a major problem. A single Tesla Model S battery is £1,440 for 5.3kWh, which equates to £270 per kWh. You’ll need quite a few of these, too, since each one will only be enough for 20-25 miles, but at 26kg apiece it’s also a trade-off against the overall weight of the vehicle.
The basic Standard Range Plus Tesla Model 3 has 54kW of batteries, so to match this you’d need around 10 of these for a 260kg weight. You will also need a custom container box for the batteries. One thing you probably can’t do with a classic car conversion is the clever installation of batteries in the floor that gives Teslas so much room. Some can go in the engine bay, and some in the boot, which can reduce luggage capacity.
Your car will also need an on-board charger, so you can plug it into standard home 240V adapters or commercial outlets. These range from £1,747 for just the charger to £2,195 for the complete kit of parts including Type 2 inlet. Electrogenic doesn’t fit faster chargers than 7kW AC, but ECC will provide 22kW and 50kW DC options on request, although didn’t disclose pricing. You might also need extras like custom drivetrain components and adapters. ECC has adapter kits for popular classic cars so you can hook the electric motor up to the existing drivetrain easily. These range in price from £1,030 to £1,840, and include BMW, Fiat, VW, Porsche and Mazda models.
Then there’s installation on top of this, which can be a bit of an unknown quantity, but taking ECC’s Fiat 500 example above it appears to be somewhere between £4,000 and £7,000 for a basic conversion, and then almost certainly upwards. ECC also sells a particularly fun charging station that looks like an old-fashioned petrol pump. At £3,500, it’s quite a bit more expensive than a standard charger, but very amusing if you can afford it.
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