I look at car channels on YouTube and there’s all this community around engine swaps and similar so it remains disappointing that there isn’t any real gas->EV equivalent market. I assume part of it is imply lack of secure space for the giant explosive mass that is current lithium battery tech, but it’s still surprising that there’s seemingly next to no option.
There's a UK shop that does EV swaps I follow, they do beautiful vintage cars, even a pair of Ferrari Testarossa's.
They describe themselves as "the world's largest converter of classic cars to electric" while also boasting "our wealth of experience having converted over 70 cars"
It does not exist outside of diy enthusiasts in the west as a used electric car will have more range and be cheaper.
So currently it's an enthusiast thing.
I occasionally see these channels when they do EV conversions and it's amusing that they need to do a little disclaimer at the start to prove that they're not some kind of Marxist and prove their ICE credentials just because they're interested in an EV conversion.
You sometimes see similar for anyone working on offgrid solar PV.
Possibly it's just the channels the algorithm feeds me but it feels like engineering reality is slowly penetrating the political fog over time.
The problem is the vast majority of the cost of an EV is the batteries. You save very little money from not buying other parts, and lose a fair bit of performance.
"giant explosive mass that is current lithium battery tech" <-- full petrol tank is the same, anything that is energy dense like that will have problems with uncontrolled release of that energy.
Equivalent market exists, but is less established, some keywords that might be worth looking at:
> full petrol tank is the same, anything that is energy dense like that will have problems with uncontrolled release of that energy.
We are smarter than this. This is the reason to put the petrol tank in the back. In case of fire, the flames and heat will move back, in the opposite direction to the people in the car.
In this photos I see batteries shamelessly put in the front. This is a nice human barbecue. On a moving car, it means that a fire starting here would move backwards, to engulf directly the people in the car.
And, unlike a gasoline fire, this batteries are basically impossible to stop after they start burning. Not with conventional means.
I want electric cars, but designed to be safe electric cars, not this mess where anybody can turn their car into giant molotov cocktails and drive in the same road as me. Is not only their lives what they are risking.
