
Aston Martin will make old cars electric so they don’t get banned from cities - rbanffy
https://www.theverge.com/2018/12/6/18129618/aston-martin-heritage-ev-electric-cars-city-ban
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boznz
As a guy at the start of converting his bmw e39 to electric the biggest
hurdles to this is both having to fight with the manufacturers documentation
and computer systems and having to manufacture from scratch adaptor plates and
splines. Also it is not cheap, if you buy everything new expect to pay
$15-$20K. Kudos to AM for doing this, though I expect it will cost you a damn
site more than $20K, though if you can afford an AM I guess it is not an
issue.

An entrepreneurial manufacturer such as Tesla who make the best donor parts
acording to the conversion community could get a lot of extra kudos for
relatively little outlay by making battery/inverter/charger/motor kits
available IMHO

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tyingq
It seems so easy to kill yourself with the voltage and amperage. ICE car kits
are dangerous too, but death seems less likely. I don't know that any company
would want the potential liability.

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rbanffy
I bet it's much easier to kill yourself with the flammable, volatile, and
toxic stuff that goes into the fuel tank. We just tend to normalize that
because we've been using ICEs since we were kids and almost nobody is dumb
enough to try to stick a lit match into the tank or take a fuel bath.

And the ones who are don't last long.

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tomatotomato37
I thought vintage cars are usually exempt from these things due to the
enthusaist population being too small to environmentally matter. That's why we
still let people drive those century-old steam cars fired by coal, any damage
just comes out in the wash.

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Cpoll
Can we expect to see electric cars and conversion kits that simulate
combustion engines? Mechanical gearboxes (or pseudo-gearboxes?), simulated
noise and vibrations, exhaust pipes with simulated vapor?

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rbanffy
I believe most of the conversion kits connect to the gearbox from the engine
side in order to preserve as much of the car as feasible and also for
simplicity (there seems to be less variation on the engine end than on the
wheel side, but my knowledge is limited mostly to Brazilian cars - 3/4 of my
family worked for Volkswagen).

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chrisdhoover
‘60’s era Porsches are are joy. Only problem is, the motors are wearing out.
There are few people casting new cases. You could build one up for 30K. If the
car is clean, I mean super clean it will go for 175K. So you have a great car
but the motor us shot. Converting to batteries might just be the answer.

