EV retrofit kits by Chevy

[RB211]

Don't know about you, but I'm getting a billion ideas through my mind about these "crate" EV kits.

[mickeyf]

No, this is the link you want:

https://www.engadget.com/chevy-ecrat...174002305.html

[old mart]

Then you can fill up the whole of the rear of the vehicle with batteries.

[alanganes]

Then you can fill up the whole of the rear of the vehicle with batteries.

This was kind of my take as well. Unless you just want an electric Blazer for the sake of having one, which is as good a reason as any I guess, this sort of negates a lot of the utility of the truck. I guess the take away if that there is a fair bit of "devil in the details" to any electric car conversion that reaches well beyond an engine swap. Adding a lot or redistributed weight to any vehicle is going to take a bit more than just filling the trunk with batteries to be done well, I think.

In any event I do think it's cool that they will be offering these. It will be interesting to see how people end up using these and I suspect it will be in lots of ways that Chevy never imagined.

[Dan Dubeau]

Interesting. Makes me want to go find a Chevette or Acadian.....

[epicfail48]

Some people look at practicality of these, and i feel that kinda misses the point. Nobody swaps a random engine for practical reasons. Maybe a 1-1 swap to get a car running again, but dropping an electric crate engine in? Nah, thats just for fun. Who cares if you have to fill the trunk with batteries, youve got the only electric whatever in the world.

If i had more money, space, time, and skill, id love to commit complete sacrilege with one of those, drop it into a 70's Camaro or something and piss off the entire classic muscle crowd

[JRouche]

There is a company here, Santa Monica I think that puts tesla drive trains in old cars.

I guess there a lot of folks crashing teslas and the drive system is intact.

Not inexpensive though. I think one he did was an old VW bug. It was very cool, and fast. JR

[RB211]

There is a company here, Santa Monica I think that puts tesla drive trains in old cars.

I guess there a lot of folks crashing teslas and the drive system is intact.

Not inexpensive though. I think one he did was an old VW bug. It was very cool, and fast. JR

The hot rod crowd has driven the cost of wrecked Teslas to over 30K. The words out, electric is the new top dog, especially with the street racers. IC engines can't compete.

[Dan Dubeau]

Hey Bill. It doesn't have to be road going....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hp7JcmwKQc

[bborr01]

I saw a video a few years ago of some little subcompact turd just eating up big block anything that showed up that night at the drag strip. Total sleeper and incredibly fast off the line.

[RB211]

Hey Bill. It doesn't have to be road going....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hp7JcmwKQc

Hey Dan, that is what I am really excited about, standardization of components for EV vehicles. Buy off the shelf speed controls for cars, just like you do in the R/C hobby. Sure, use them for everything!

[Dan Dubeau]

Yeah the tech is rapidly evolving, and the fact that GM is offering this as a standalone kit is a step in a cool direction. Who knows what the future will bring.

[Ringo]

Geez, many years ago in a former life, I worked as a forklift mechanic. One day I was on a electric forklift, the battery was about a 4foot cube of lead-acid battery, that was the counterweight.
I picked up a full/stacked pallet of old car batteries and stood on the gas pedal,,,,,,that thing smoked the driver tires !!
OMG !! the torque it had !!! all that weight and it still smoked the tires. unbelieveable and that was old school equipment.
Today look at the power of battery hand tools, quite impressive.
Electric motor torque is no-joke, and it will get better as battery technology progresses.

[J Tiers]

It's almost like cheating.........Electric motors have a large overload capability in many cases. Almost every electrical device is actually heat-limited for available power capacity. Efficiency drops like a stone in many cases with a significant overload, but power still goes up a bit until the overload gets crazy.

Electric motors usually have between 150% and 300% overloaded max torque. Beyond that the torque increase with more current usually drops off. And they are often lighter than the equivalent IC motor, mostly because they leave out a lot of the power production process, it happens "elsewhere", while an IC engine has to have it all right there. Newer batteries are also lighter than older ones for the same capacity. Of course, as the batteries get more energy dense, they also get closer to being "bombs", just as the gasoline tank is.

Gasoline engines, or diesel, are pretty much limited by the amount of oxygen packed into the cylinder. That's why a supercharger works.

[RB211]

Cheating? Or Progress?