J1000
Rising Sun Member
@DouglasVB Yep a huge amount of the restoration/classic car economy is going to be transformed into EV conversions. Personally, I don't think it's going to make sense to convert a commuter car to EV for financial reasons for at least several years. Right now, though, converting a classic car to EV is definitely cheaper in a lot of cases than rebuilding the original motor for a lot of vehicles. It's not like a Mini Truck is ever going to break down but if the engine blew for some reason it might make sense to do a conversion at that point, but not while it's a running vehicle.
I bought an entire wrecked Nissan Leaf for $3500 and that got me a 24kwh battery, motor, inverter, chargers, etc, etc. I'm going to buy another Leaf hopefully a few years newer and use the battery out of that in my Land Cruiser. I could have used my current Leaf battery pack but its from a 2013 and I measured the capacity at only 17kwh so it's degraded quite a bit. That amount of capacity is perfect for the Electrek but a little low for the LC. I am going to try and buy a 30kwh 2015+ Leaf next and use that battery in the LC. Salvaged Leafs and Fiat 500es are the most cost effective method to get lithium batteries with serious capacity, but you have to dissemble yourself. So far I have paid back about 1/2 of what the Leaf cost me by parting it out. I'm hoping to break even on the next one by selling the motor/inverter etc too.
Yes, I really would like to make this a business. I think once I get my LC running I'll be able to use it as an example and look for my first customer.
I bought an entire wrecked Nissan Leaf for $3500 and that got me a 24kwh battery, motor, inverter, chargers, etc, etc. I'm going to buy another Leaf hopefully a few years newer and use the battery out of that in my Land Cruiser. I could have used my current Leaf battery pack but its from a 2013 and I measured the capacity at only 17kwh so it's degraded quite a bit. That amount of capacity is perfect for the Electrek but a little low for the LC. I am going to try and buy a 30kwh 2015+ Leaf next and use that battery in the LC. Salvaged Leafs and Fiat 500es are the most cost effective method to get lithium batteries with serious capacity, but you have to dissemble yourself. So far I have paid back about 1/2 of what the Leaf cost me by parting it out. I'm hoping to break even on the next one by selling the motor/inverter etc too.
Yes, I really would like to make this a business. I think once I get my LC running I'll be able to use it as an example and look for my first customer.