AskewLordWhat kind of car do you drive, and what kind do you wish you did?
I’d like to have a small cargo van with a DIY electric conversion, as opposed to a ready-made EV loaded with spyware. I’m not a car person so I don’t yet understand why an EV is inherently more complicated than a washing machine on wheels, plus a battery system. They made them in the 1920s right? It should be doable with very little software, anyway.
kivihiilifrom what i’ve gathered, many earlier EVs were more so “luxury” vehicles, and a lot of them were made by tesla, notorious for shoving wireless connectivity in vehicles. those other luxury EVs decided to follow suit with that!
but note that “many” i sneaked in there. there were absolutely some that weren’t spyware machines! the first that come to mind are the earlier models of the nissan leaf and chevy volt (well, there is onstar, but it is not so hard to disable), but there are certainly others. there is no valid reason for the spyware, i mean these cars easily did without it (minus again, onstar…)!
as for an electric van, i knew a (ex-)teacher who did just that! from what she said, she pulled a couple of the major drivetrain components (motor, battery, differential etc.) from a crashed nissan leaf, hooked up an aftermarket controller, and from what i heard the most fiddly parts were the charge port and getting the axles dealt with. i don’t know if she got custom axles made or if she just mashed together the axles from both vehicles, but she said it was ultimately a nice vehicle to drive around.
I had thought in terms of keeping the differential and drive shaft for an RWD van. But IDK. I know there are conversion kits you can buy, and even shops that will install them for you. Old van = $5K, conversion kit without battery = $5K to $10K (dunno), battery depends on size I guess, but maybe $6K (50 KWH) for 100 mile range. I haven’t seriously pursued it, just had the idea bubbling around.