Dare we say it but this is by far a more sustainable/sensible option vs buying a new car. Also liked Toyota's idea to simply convert ICE's to hydrogen powered ones.
This is targeted at people who mod cars for fun, the kind of people who swap an LS series V8 into whatever. It's not at all intended for DIY conversion by non-experts of regular commuter cars to electric power.
That's fair. I was thinking of the people who would buy a crate motor -- even a basic GM LS3 runs almost $8000. People who do swaps by finding a used LS1/2/3 in a junkyard are not spending anywhere near that. On average they're probably doing the more interesting swaps, too.
It's neither sensible or sustainable for mass market use. Installing this motor in most cars would require multiple days of work plus custom fabrication. And then where do you put the batteries?
Manufacturers are happy to sell crate motors just to pick up a little extra revenue but it will never be more than a tiny niche market for enthusiasts.
It's undeniably more materially efficient to re-power serviceable vehicles but people get their the panties in knot over safety so I doubt the "reverse glider" approach will ever gain a big foothold in the light vehicle market. It would likely be targeted by legislation that makes it economically non-viable if that were to happen.
Considering that the venn diagram between "people who profess to care a lot about safety" and "people who profess to care a lot about the environment" has a pretty massive overlap I look forward to the inevitable dumpster fire as people are forced to reconcile that the tradeoffs exist.
Furthermore, a ton of ancillary stuff has improved so much over the last 20+yr that the cumulative difference is quite noticeable. Few people will drop "new Mitsubishi Mirage" money re-powering an '03 Civic.
> Few people will drop "new Mitsubishi Mirage" money re-powering an '03 Civic.
as you hint at re. legislation this is heavily dependant on how any transition is structured - a heavy-handed transition would put alot of upward market pressure on new EV's and downward pressure on old ICV's that could create a market niche for conversions - they might not spend "new Mitsubishi Mirage" money on a civic, but they might opt to save 5-10k vs new/slightly used EV for a '15 converted mercedes ...
