This won't sell; people will just buy a crashed EV for 1/10th the cost and salvage the motor and battery. This is more of an insult than a product. It reeks of "you're not qualified to work on our premium electrons until you pay $10k and pass our one-day eCourse"
The motor package from a Leaf is about 90kg so probably in the same ballpark as the fuel tank, rear axle, and gearbox. You'd then need to get a lighter battery because a Leaf's battery is about 350kg, or twice the weight of an MX5's engine.
There would be a lot of surgery involved on the back end but since it's a subframe with the diff in the middle you're halfway there.
And for once, the project car's totally rotten boot floor won't be a problem because you're cutting all that away anyway!
Meanwhile, Ford has been selling the Mach-E motor as a crate motor for years; but it's useless, because they sell nothing else for it. No battery pack, no controller, no regenerative brakes. Pretty much a PR sham. Why bother?
I have a Mustang with a half-disassembled engine that needs major work, so I thought hey this might be cool. Nope.
I have done several EV conversions using parts as you describe and there is a healthy amount of reverse engineering, defeating or replicating functions you didnt think of until it doesnt work right with modules that are expecting other modules to exist on the bus that no longer exist, and a million other things.
That's fine for a personal hobby project, but that is a very, very, very small project. The target for this kind of product is conversion shops that want to be able to offer customers tight turnarounds on vanity EV conversions with warrantees. 10k is pretty minor on that kind of project, the lead time and integration complexity is way more important.
We also had to bring over all the emission EVAP stuff, for the evap on the RSX tank (plastic irrc) we bought a new EG tank and welded all the necessary fittings to get it to work.
Very engaging car to drive.
Note in the eCrate link it's explicitly claimed to be legal when done correctly.
I'd rather that reality than the EV conversion hobby be plagued and slandered with "this guy bought official parts and his baby perished in the resulting home fire".
In so many markets manufacturers are antagonistic to repair and customization; project cars remains this wonderful little niche where DIY excellence is enabled and encouraged. That shouldn't end with ICEs.
We have hobbyist mechanics out here taking their engine blocks to the machinist, rebuilding hydraulic automatic transmissions on the workbench, not to mention safely handling literal buckets of combustibles. They'll be fine.
This level of conversion isn't exactly trivial but it also isn't rocket surgery for the kind of person who pulls an engine out for rebuild on a classic car project.
If you saw the "quality" of electrical work otherwise very smart car enthusiasts do you might think otherwise.
... so you're buying into a locked, digital control system, akin to what John Deere puts out.
This ranks right up there with BMW wanting to charge a monthly fee for heated seats - building in physical abilities, with digital lockouts. You know, you can buy a LS engine, and do whatever horsepower changes you want to it. For those more akin to computers than cars, this is called a "LS swap" and is common with restomods.
This is disappointing to hear and tarnishes a brand like Chevy. Fortunately, we're in a free market; I'll vote with my dollars.
I asked him if we'd see an all electric Corvette in the C8 timeframe, or would have to wait until the C9?
He confirmed (to the group) there would not be an all electric C8.
GM has long done "crate" engines, where people swap their cars OE engine for one of GM's small block v8s (an "LS or LT swap") frequently found in Corvettes, Escalades, and probably Silverado/large trucks/SUVs.
Seeing an electric crate engine from GM shows me that they plan to do the same with an electrified power train. Cool.
[1] https://indd.adobe.com/view/a055533b-ed9a-4d56-84cb-5a416287...
Yeah, I thought of the first corvettes that had catalytic converters:
1974 models had the last true dual exhaust system that was dropped on the 1975 models with the introduction of catalytic converters requiring the use of no-lead fuel. Engine power decreased with the base ZQ3 engine producing 165 hp (123 kW; 167 PS), the optional L82's output 205 hp (153 kW; 208 PS), while the 454 big-block engine was discontinued.
It took me a second to put it together that they’re the submitter.
Buying motors and batteries from Aliexpress you can probably get under $15K-$10K even ( and that is probably BOM of Chinese car manufacturers for such the engine and batteries), yet having it as a US factory package $27K doesn't look that bad for me.
Which is a bit wild to me because I looked into adding a supercharger to my 2010 Camaro last month and it was 7-9k DIY.
(Not because it's a bad car in itself, but all of the electronics shit is falling apart.)
But for a restomod muscle car? Gimme that LS V8 goodness with the sweet sweet brumble brumble brumble noises and smoky burnouts (on private property only, obv).
I've been looking for 200+ hp engine swaps for my 100 hp, 125 lb-ft of torque lifted 1986 Toyota pickup with 31" tires (like the one on Back to the Future but 1 year newer and not extended cab).
For comparison, my 2013 Nissan Leaf has 107 hp, about 200 lb-ft of torque, weighs the same 3300 lbs, and does 0-60 mph in about 7-10 seconds depending on the weather.
So even accounting for the 300-500 lb weight of the 22r engine and accessories vs 1000+ lbs of electric motor and batteries, doubling the hp would be ludicrous speed (0-60 mph under 6 seconds), by all but 2010s era EV times.
I just looked up the price of Nissan Leaf battery swaps:
24 kWh (refurbished): 84 miles of range, $3,500-$5,000
40 kWh (upgrade): 125 miles of range, $6,500-$8,000
62 kWh (advanced upgrade, requires reshaping): 195 miles of range, $12,000-$14,500
Labor: Approximately 5-7 hours of labor at $100-$150/hour, adding $500-$1,500 to the total.
https://electricmotors.com/200-horsepower-electric-motors.ht...
($23,579.99 + $19,657.99 + $20,611.99 + $22,267.99 + $27,199.99 + $27,199.99 + $13,383.99 + $13,029.99 + $15,159.99 + $10,989.99 + $10,819.99 + $13,469.99 + $13,469.99 + $13,851.99 + $13,851.99 + $14,259.99) / 16 =
$17,050 (200 hp average price)
$14,500 + $1500 + $17,050 =
$33,050 (200 hp full swap price not counting charger/inverter etc)
Also I feel that these numbers are inflated, due to the US's current 100% import tariff on Chinese EVs:
https://www.utilitydive.com/news/joe-biden-china-tariff-hike...
I'm part of the "radical center" politically (the opposite of centrist/moderate, popularized by Thom Hartmann and others), so this disappoints both sides of my sensibilities.
An electric motor is far easier to build than a gas engine, so should cost less than a crate engine (which are typically $2,000-7,000). Of course that's limited by copper and aluminum prices (not to mention lithium for batteries). Edit: wouldn't want to forget rare earths like neodymium either!
I believe that the decades-long delay in EV manufacturing (see Who Killed the Electric Car) was a supply chain problem, not a tech problem, since we've known how to do this since the 1980s and arguably for more like a century since the first cars were EV/biofuel powered and we've had nickel-iron and sodium-sulfur batteries forever that could have done the job, but I digress.
If/when the economy crashes in 2027/2028, and after voters demand better, I'd expect a cottage industry to open up again that builds EV parts for 1/2 price or less.
Maybe you can make some kind of case in their defense, safety or whatever, but what makes it truly indefensible is that once the car is out of warranty, out of their liability, they're just gonna chuck the software keys in a pit and leave you with an eternally immutable half-baked design.
So unless this comes with a fully open source software package, or even no software at all and just documentation, it's a bad product and I wish the worst for it.
Gearboxes in EV conversions are usually locked in the highest gear with clutch and lever removed.
So if you mount just the electric motor from an EV (insofar as it exists as a separable part) to a manual gearbox and weld that into 2nd gear you have something which broadly matches the design envelope of that motor. You could reduce gearbox losses by also removing the now unneeded but still idling gears.
I still think it's dumb and they should package it to replace the transmission and stuff all the batteries where the engine would go.
It would be "easy" to make the motor replace the bellhousing and midsection of a 4L80 and then simply provide the same output so you can stick whatever tailhousing you want on it. Put shifter on the side in the same spot, etc, etc. Could've packaged the batteries to fit in the same place as a SBC longblock.
I can't really come up with a "good" reason they did it the way they did. The problems the transmission solves are pretty trivial. Like either replace the engine so it can work with "any" transmission that can handle the torque (i.e. most of them) or replace the transmission too. Don't replace the engine and then mandate a particular trans. The only reason I can see to do that is if it's some sort of wink and nod deal where they know that it's easy to make it work with other transmissions but they're not touting it as compatible to cover their asses.
"The current eCrate kit requires a GM 4-speed automatic transmission with an external mode switch (e.g., 4L60, 4L65, 4L70, 4L75 Transmissions). This helps to make the eCrate conversion easier for vehicles that already have a conventional driveline, plus it provides extra torque in lower gears and extra speed with overdrive. We are working on bringing a direct drive variant option to our eCrate portfolio."
though GM seems to be the only american automaker that hasn't really given up on EVs
Rivian and Lucid are both American automakers, as is Tesla.
It's also only the front motor from the Mach-E and the concept truck Ford made with this crate motor at release includes the rear motor to make it functional, which they don't sell...
It won't take years for they to think that they can pry in private conversations in the car for whatever purpose they want
I don't really care if the package itself is cool or anything... I think people incentive too much this sort of anti consumer practices
Got OnStar? https://www.onstar.com/features/location-sharing
I thought the kids were calling it “unalived”.