EV conversion

Ford Motor Company has taken its dedication to electrification a step further by offering its Eluminator electric crate motor to the public to create custom EVs of their own. The 281 horsepower Eluminator motor is present in the Mustang Mach-E GT Performance Edition, and can now be installed into other vehicles, such as an electrified 1978 Ford F-100 pickup.

EV designer Zero Labs has shared demonstration footage of its proprietary EV platform designed specifically for classic cars being implemented on a 50-year-old truck. In a process it’s cleverly calling “retrobution,” the company electrifies the truck in just 24 hours. The video offers evidence that classic gasoline or diesel vehicles from previous decades can successfully be converted to fully electric versions to help reduce emissions.

GM has unveiled its 1977 Chevy K5 Blazer-E converted to electric power with its upcoming eCrate conversion kit using Chevy Bolt EV batteries.

EV West has unveiled its new Tesla crate motor mount kit to drop into V8 muscle cars in electric conversion projects.

A Tesla powertrain, along with several other Tesla parts, were used to turn Johnny Cash’s Rolls-Royce into a unique electric car with 200 miles of range.

VW becomes the latest automaker to standardize the electric conversion of its classic cars – starting with classic Beetles. They unveiled the first prototype ahead of the International Motor Show (IAA) in Frankfurt, Germany.
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A French startup is trying to streamline electric conversion with Tesla batteries in order to offer a relatively cheap way to convert older fossil fuel-powered cars.
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One of the coolest electric conversions we have ever seen, an old-school VW Bug powered by Tesla batteries, is being given away for a good cause.
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While you still can’t buy an electric Mustang from Ford, a company decided to combine resto-mod with all-electric conversion to sell some stunning all-electric 1960’s Mustangs.
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ICON, a restomod company based in Los Angeles, and Stealth EV, a company specializing in electric car conversions, unveiled a new EV conversion at SEMA today: a 1949 Mercury coupe with a Tesla battery pack.
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As I stated in my ‘Taking a Tesla Model 3 Performance to the dragstrip‘ post yesterday, there was only one other electric vehicle at the track this weekend and it was a special one: A Tesla-powered Honda S2000 that ran the quarter-mile in 10 seconds.
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Audi has yet to launch its first all-electric vehicle built to be electric from the ground up, but it has conversion compliance cars around.

But now an Audi S5 owner decided to make his own conversion using a Tesla powertrain and it might be the best all-electric Audi out there right now.
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Lately, we are seeing an increase not only in new electric vehicles but also of EV conversions.

Now a group in New Zealand went old school by converting a classic 1957 Ford Fairlane to an all-electric powertrain.
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In the balmy Missouri heat of August 2012, surrounded by what must have been a record forty lithium battery powered EV conversions, I had the opportunity to meet Michael Bream from San Diego.  He hadn’t brought a car to this convention, just a Ziploc sandwich bag containing the remains of a shattered rear differential gear.  Openly unafraid to try new things with electric motors, Michael had partnered up with fellow gear-head Matt Hauber to form one of the coolest conversion shops, EVWest.  They were both convinced that switching from gasoline to electric power was simply the next logical step to meeting their performance goals.
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As the electric vehicle market grows, the salvaged electric vehicle market is bound to grow also and that opens up opportunities for hobbyists to use electric motors and battery packs from those salvaged cars to convert more classic vehicles and kit cars to electric propulsion.

We have seen some pretty cool ongoing projects already, like an all-electric 818 kit car with a Tesla drivetrain runing a quarter-mile in 10.1 seconds and conversion of a 1969 VW Karmann Ghia. We now learn of a new project with the body of a classic 427 Shelby Cobra powered by a Tesla motor and a Kia Soul EV battery pack.
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Earlier this summer, we reported on an Ottawa-based car tuner, Eurodyne, and a local car shop, Tapp Auto, building an all-electric kit car with a Tesla drive unit and two Chevy Volt battery packs. The team is now back with an updated version of the car and it’s ridiculously fast.
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With our recent piece about the converted VW Karmann Ghia, we thought it would only be appropriate to share with y’all the experience that Fully Charged had with the all-electric converted 1965 VW Beetle from Electric Classic Cars, which they nicknamed the ‘Voltswagen.’

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A new all-electric VW has hit the roads! No, we aren’t talking about all the EVs that Volkswagen Group has been hinting at and announcing recently. We are talking about a project from an aspiring mechanical engineer who converted a classic 1969 VW Karmann Ghia into an all-electric car with the help of his father.

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After covering Scott Masterson’s Bayliner 175 all-electric boat conversion last month, we have now learned of another interesting electric conversion. Electric vehicle enthusiast, Rich Rudman, transformed a 1984 4×4 Toyota extra-cab pickup truck into an EV with batteries from a Nissan Leaf.

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We have seen a couple of awesome all-electric boats in the past year, such as Frank Stephenson’s creation and the Alfastreet Energy 23C. Now, we have a tinkerer and EV enthusiast, Scott Masterson, who has converted a 2016 Bayliner 175 into an all-electric speed boat.

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