Anyone electrifying?

[James Morse]

Seems Ford is selling kit to electrify vehicles, on the news they had an old F150 it was fast as f.
Hope that's not anathema. I'm not a convert to electric yet, don't know if I'll ever be.
Have no idea what they cost probably expensive.

 

[stmitch]

Was it this truck?

If that's the truck in question, It's basically just a Mustang Mach E with an old truck body dropped on top. The Roadster Shop did a custom chassis, but it's mechanical stuff/battery is all Mach E GT. Pretty sure the wheelbase is even the same.

Here you can see the Mach E front and rear subframes, suspensions, and battery pack integrated into the custom chassis.

There's way more to EV conversions than just the electric motors. Fitting the battery, the inverters, all of the cooling, the software to control it is all a pretty significant task for a build like this. Ford spent 6 figures on it for sure. Stuff like this is a cool novelty, but it's not realistic for most people's budgets.

EV West has some cool EV swaps for old air cooled VWs that are probably more appropriate for a decent garage mechanic.

 

[RonD]

Not sure converting a full size ICE vehicle to electric would be more than a Project, something to do

Although a Rear wheel drive pickup truck Hybrid has an appeal
Use electric front wheels(in-wheel motors)
And battery packs in the bed

 

[bobbywalter]

Yeah.... eventually.

Zero rpm tq and turn table steering are things I will enjoy.

 

[Chapap]

I once talked to a guy with a vacation house on the beach. He put enough Fiat body parts on his golf cart that it could pass as a Fiat from a distance. That way he can get away with taking it on "no golf cart" roads. Does that count?

 

[RonD]

Was it an Electric Golf Cart?

 

[pjtoledo]

Yeah.... eventually.

Zero rpm tq and turn table steering are things I will enjoy.

I though you could already spin in circles?

 

[Chapap]

Was it an Electric Golf Cart?

Yep. It was a little more than a regular golf cart tho. Would do like 30. But that’s expected of an old guy on the beach.

 

[pjtoledo]

back in the late 70s General Electric had a conversion kit for electric fork lifts that went from the resistor setup to a solid state controller.
so there really isn't anything new about conversion concepts, but technology is a whole hellofalot better now.

 

[JoshT]

He put enough Fiat body parts on his golf cart that it could pass as a Fiat from a distance.

Would do like 30.

Sounds like a stock Fiat to me. Isn't that about what they did to build it, just using a gas golf cart?


Not to get back into the whole pros/cons of EVs discussion from another thread, but the support network isn;t to the point where I'm willing to adopt EV yet. If it were, I'd probably be willing to drive a restomod EV classic truck or car. Be a lot more interested in that than the mainstream EV stuff that is being sold currently. That said there are some current (or soon to be) EVs that pique my interest like the Manx I posted in that other thread.

 

[Lefty]

I would go electric if I could afford it

 

[85_Ranger4x4]

I have 'lectric choke

 

[rusty ol ranger]

Redirect Notice

This is the better way to go.

 

[19Walt93]

Was it this truck?

If that's the truck in question, It's basically just a Mustang Mach E with an old truck body dropped on top. The Roadster Shop did a custom chassis, but it's mechanical stuff/battery is all Mach E GT. Pretty sure the wheelbase is even the same.

Here you can see the Mach E front and rear subframes, suspensions, and battery pack integrated into the custom chassis.

There's way more to EV conversions than just the electric motors. Fitting the battery, the inverters, all of the cooling, the software to control it is all a pretty significant task for a build like this. Ford spent 6 figures on it for sure. Stuff like this is a cool novelty, but it's not realistic for most people's budgets.

EV West has some cool EV swaps for old air cooled VWs that are probably more appropriate for a decent garage mechanic.

The folks who think swapping an EV battery is like swapping the battery on a cordless tool should see this picture. I saw a 55 F100 with a grenade (SBC)
under the hood at the NSRA Northeast Nationals on Saturday, the guy who did that should get together with this builder so it will be easier to neuter them both.

 

[James Morse]

OK so the news clips are totally misleading because it gives the impression we'll have 'conversion shops' where you take your car and they swap in the electric parts.... but what I'm seeing here is actually a different car entirely except for the body. Now if the clip had said 'we took a Mustang electric car and put a F150 body on it' that's something entirely different. I realize it's hype for ev's and it's sort of cool, but from a practical standpoint, it's meaningless.

If there were shops where you could take an older vehicle say with shot engine/tranny but otherwise in good shape and make it into an ev for a reasonable cost like say 10-15k, that would be something, but I don't see it.

It's hard to believe it would -ever- be cheaper to retrofit an ice vehicle than to just make an ev to begin with, except maybe for something like the VW kit mentioned, but they are different in quite a few ways.

Plus even if you did retrofit the average vehicle, what do you have then? An ev with the rest of it old and probably worn and needing rebuild too.

Not to mention, what would you drive while your car is being retrofitted? Doesn't make sense... the labor alone would probably cost a mint let alone the parts.

The way they presented it on the news would make an average person say "I'm waiting until the conversion shops open then just converting my existing car".

People are saying the ev F150 loses a lot of range when towing. Is this a big surprise? ICE vehicles get worse mileage when towing, right? Additional energy has to come from somewhere so it would be ridiculous to think the mileage wouldn't change. So you'd tow maybe 150 miles - if that - then you need to wait quite a while for a charge. And as the dealer pointed out when I was waiting for inspection and shooting the sh*t, 'you have to plan your route'.

Seems like we need a bit more tweaking of the batteries to get like 600 miles range and 300 towing, or something. Not here yet. On the other hand the electric motors have instant torque, I understand, so there's that.

But as to conversions, it sounds like a special project type of thing not for the mainstream.