Why you should never convert your classic car to an Electric Vehicle

I'm seeing more and more videos and posts about people converting classic cars from their original ICE engine to an Electric Motor.
Some are proud for having done so in a single day challenge, others for having overcome the technical challenges and fitted motor and battery pack on a chassis that was not designed at all for such conversion. 
​They do spend thousands of dollars, euros or pounds on the conversion, in the range of 15,000 or more.

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​The converted classic car drives well with some immediate advantages:

• Getting the rid of the ICE engine maintenance and difficulty to find parts for it;
• Getting the rid of the gasoline problems with time, specifically when turning into varnish inside the carburetor and tank of the classic car.

The list of PROS ends here unfortunately, and here's why:

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Reason No 1 for not converting a classic car to an EV: the lifetime of the battery pack

Battery Electric Vehicles (BEV) or simply EVs, use a lithium battery pack to store electric energy that will be used to move the vehicle by the means of an electric motor.
The battery pack has a limited lifetime of 8-10 years.
A classic car is a vehicle that has more than 40 years of age as a minimum, with the most interesting ones being 50 or 60 years old at least.
They are renovated and stored indoors for years, so they can gain in value and be sold at a higher price by changing ownership from one collector to another.
Powering them with a battery pack that requires replacement every 10 years at best, is therefore obviously a major problem, as this requires replacing it, while it accounts for not less than 60% of the conversion cost. 
You might not find a replacement with the exact same dimensions, and as a result, you'd have again to consider an adaptation and modification, eventually consider dismantling the battery pack and replacing the lithium batteries inside, which is equivalent to an engine rebuild on ICE engines.
Engine rebuild occurs once in the lifetime of a classic car, upon renovation, while battery pack replacement would then have to be considered several times during the lifetime of the car, or else it won't be in a working condition.

Battery packs for EV conversion:

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Reason No 2 of the nonsense of converting a classic car to an EV: safety 

Electric vehicles are designed and manufactured by auto makers to have their battery pack fitted to the bottom of the car chassis, beneath the seats, for two specific reasons:

• Keep the center of gravity of the vehicle as low as possible
• Protect the battery pack and its wiring in case of crash, thus having it fixed within the safest and strongest part of a car. We're talking about a powerful battery that operates on a much higher voltage than the usual 12V of a regular car.

Below image courtesy of NISSAN USA

When converting a classic car to an EV, I'm seeing the battery pack being fixed in the engine compartment in order to put some weight there, and keep the same loading of the car suspension, compared to the ICE engine and its heavy gearox.
This is indeed a dangerous setup and architecture, since the battery will be directly involved in case of a mild crash. The deformed car chassis doesn't need necessarily to hit the battery or its wires, there's already a danger resulting from the battery pack being kicked out of its supports by the centrifugal energy and hitting the engine hood or car body.
This creates a dangerous situation where the converted classic can catch fire, especially old cars crash very badly even at low speeds!

check our other tips and tricks for cars here

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Reason No 3 about why a classic car should not go electric: cost of conversion

For a budget of typically 15K of whatever currency like USD, EUR or GBP, are you sure you will sell your classic car at its current foreseen value + 15K or more?
There are no transactions and stats involving converted classics and nothing is so sure. Collectors won't necessarily invest in a converted vehicle for the below reasons:

• It is very much far from the original
• They have to consider a costly battery pack replacement every decade or before re-selling the car
• They have to keep charging the vehicle even if unused, not to let the battery deteriorate
• Conversion kit parts are not guaranteed to remain available for that exact kit, one would need to replace part or all of the kit components upon a failure of its electronics
• Etc.

The costly conversion kit also includes a cheap instrument panel to fit in replacement of the valuable original and beautiful instrumentation of the car. Imagine removing the superbly designed panel of a Mini Cooper, Beetle or 2CV and replacing it with the below EV kit instruments!

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Reason No 4 about classic car conversion CONS: driving it on daily basis?

I see some blogs and websites talking about "driving your classic car daily"; seriously?
A classic car that isn't limited to a matter of 100 to 500 km yearly at max, and that is not driven on a sunny Sunday from time to time just for the fun of it, or for maintaining it in a good working condition, isn't a classic anymore. This is a renovated old vehicle that you drive daily, and therefore, which value is diminishing daily upon each km. You'd be also taking the risk of accidents, making it much difficult to repair due to the lack of car body parts or even headlights, bumpers, etc.

Do not think about the brand new battery, electric motor and reducing gear (wrongly called gearbox) of an EV kit as an upgrade to your "classic" car, or a mean to drive it on daily basis, without failures! What about suspension, brakes, steering, car exterior body, car interior, upholstery, windows, doors, rubber parts, roof and hood paint, etc., do these suffer no wear or failures? 

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If you still insist on converting your car, or if you wish to build a project EV as a diy or engineering challenge, here's my advice:

• Remove the back seats and fit the battery pack in there, eventually just behind the back seats if your car has a giant trunk like sedans.
• Fix the battery pack at the lowest possible level, i.e. directly to the bottom of the cabin
• Make sure the battery pack body and your car chassis are mechanically, thermally and electrically bound together.
• Add a temperature sensor to the hottest part of the body of the battery pack and a temperature gauge to your dashboard so you can monitor the battery temperature while driving or charging
• Do not install the charging terminal on the front or rear of the vehicle, rather on any side

You may buy your EV car conversion kit here:

check our other tips and tricks for cars here

check all our car maintenance tutorials here

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