Suppose that you can get your FFRR/other car/bike, converted to fully electric vessel (with range extender optional) for say about 10k GBP. You drive it into the shop in the morning, the entire drive train, engine, fuel system etc. get removed, a complete electrical drive system with hub e-motors in each wheel (providing 5.0 SC plus performance and re-gen/braking) is installed. You pick it up the same day (evening) and all the "re-registration" is done to get the benefits (lower road tax, no congestion charge etc.).

Range starts of with some 400 miles but will increase over the years when better battery/capacitor systems get installed. The range extenders are biofuel or hydrogen fuel cell based (likely small jet engine/generator).

Assume road tax is reduced to 10% of current, "fuel" cost is dirt cheap (compared to petrol/diesel). Insurance is same or less. No congestion charge. Running/maintenance cost much much lower.

The question is, would you do it assuming the car/bike retains its feel/behaviour pretty much.

The engine/drive train etc. get recycled.

Note that I'm assuming (thanks for the tip Robert) that you have access to renewable electricity and that that access will increase rapidly over time. For those who are interested, in line with the Third Industrial Revolution by Jeremy Rifkin.

Obviously in case the FFRR it becomes much more reliable  MY 2010 5.0 SC Galway green and sand interior!!
Have the Faultmate MSV2 Extreme to be tinkering with the settings etc. !!

Last edited by ebajema on 28th Nov 2014 2:12pm. Edited 1 time in total

Probably, but more likely I'd buy a newer vehicle to do it with - mine's 12 years old now.

Eugene, have you see the film 'Gattaca'? Had lots of old cars like Rover P6's electrically powered. Very cool looking.

Oh Oo Eugene what an item, since electricity is still produced in one off the most polluting ways, I do not see any advantage in driving Eco. If we, on this forum want to be green, we all sell our heavy, big engined dinosaur, that costs far to many essential materials to build and buy a bike or a small car on lpg or biogurgel or use public transport. It's about time that governments and some of the biggest companies develop a clean, civilized, comfortable and nearly free sort of public transport. There are so many great ideas, that are all killed by politicians bought by the oil industry, so will never see daylight. I already drive on LPG to silence my conscience. So to answer your question; NO

KurtVerbose wrote:

Probably, but more likely I'd buy a newer vehicle to do it with - mine's 12 years old now.

Eugene, have you see the film 'Gattaca'? Had lots of old cars like Rover P6's electrically powered. Very cool looking.

Robert, thanks. A few assumptions : access to renewable electricity will be sufficient and increasing over time (made an edit to the original post) and it is not limited to FFRRs.

The idea is, cheaper access to fully electric driving/riding by converting existing cars. I would love to buy a new Tesla S or X but can not afford it and that is the case for a very large percentage of the population. To increase the uptake of the full E drive (over hybrid) and reduce the conversion time, the retrofit of full e-drive to existing fossil fuel cars would also reduce the environmental cost quite a bit since you will be using a large part of the existing cars in the world that you don't have to produce from scratch. MY 2010 5.0 SC Galway green and sand interior!!
Have the Faultmate MSV2 Extreme to be tinkering with the settings etc. !!

Ok Eugene, lets assume...where do we locate this Start Up ....

I know businesses in the USA doing Porches...

^^^ can they do the whole house, and not just the porch?  .
Experience is the only genuine knowledge, but as time passes, I have forgotten more than I can remember
Volvo V70 P2 2006 2.4 Petrol 170bhp Estate SE
MG Midget Mk1 1962

Previous: L322 Range Rover TDV8 3.6 2008; L322 Range Rover TD6 3.0 2002; P38A Range Rover V8 1999

yep I mean that flattened beetles

Quote "Suppose that you can get your FFRR/other car/bike, converted to fully electric vessel (with range extender optional) for say about 10k GBP. You drive it into the shop in the morning, the entire drive train, engine, fuel system etc. get removed, a complete electrical drive system with hub e-motors in each wheel (providing 5.0 SC plus performance and re-gen/braking) is installed. You pick it up the same day (evening) and all the "re-registration" is done to get the benefits (lower road tax, no congestion charge etc.). "

That's all well and good but, most households in the UK have not access to a charging point outside their home. I for one would have to have a lead across the footpath to the car parked on the main road to charge the vehicle. (I do park it off road in a secure compound, but there is no access to electricity there). If everyone did that, the two lane road would soon become a bottleneck for the busses, wagons that use the road and there would be traffic chaos.

Quote "Assume road tax is reduced to 10% of current, "fuel" cost is dirt cheap (compared to petrol/diesel). Insurance is same or less. No congestion charge. Running/maintenance cost much much lower. "

Not going to happen regarding the fuel (not in the UK anyway), the motorist is too much of a cash cow. Road tax for the moment is zero rated for vehicles where the co2 emissions are under 99grams per kilometre, but that will soon change when the gov start to loose the revenue. I don't know what they were thinking when they abolished the road fund licence disk, they should have gone the whole way and abolished it altogether and put it on fuel. The more miles you do/fuel you use, the more you pay, simples. And fuel will never become dirt cheap, might come down a bit in price, but will never be cheap.

Quote "Probably, but more likely I'd buy a newer vehicle to do it with - mine's 12 years old now. "

That's another problem with the world, nothing is made to last any great length of time, most societies are a throw away society. The earth has a finite source of minerals, etc. When they run out that is it.

Quote "Oh Oo Eugene what an item, since electricity is still produced in one off the most polluting ways, I do not see any advantage in driving Eco."

Exactly the point. Take the G-Wizz electric car as an example. The tree huggers state that it is none polluting. A quote from the clean-transport.co.uk.
"Powered entirely by electricity, it is small, nippy and great fun to drive. It is capable of up to 50mph* with a range of up to 48miles*, making the G-Wiz ideal for eco-friendly urban and suburban driving. With free road tax, low insurance, free parking and no congestion charging in London, the G-Wiz makes good financial sense too. "
No mention of where it is made, then shipped halfway round the world with the most polluting transport on the earth, to reach our shores. With the carbon footprint those container ships use, you could probably drive your not so polluting FFRR 50,000 miles before playing catch-up.

I am not against new technologies in anything but as Robert states, there are too many vested interests with untrustworthy politicians, greedy oil companies, even corrupt countries that wouldn't let most good ideas see the light of day.

Rant over,

Steve. 1968 Series IIA Pastel Green, nearly there project

That thread title was a let down .......

Its a conspiracy, the reason that the G-Wizz is really cheap to run, is, if more people were to buy G-Wizz's, the death rate will increase and the Treasury will get heaps of dosh in death duty's and the NHS will save squillions not having to care for the elderly as there wont be any. Due to the fantastic Ncap safety rating of said G-Wizz, I think it's a minus figure
Just think, if everyone was made to drive a G-Wizz at the age of retirement, the average life expectancy of an adult would be about 67 and 2 weeks, dam I've just solve the most of the economies problems with one idea And then if they were to enforce cremation they could use this to generate electricity to charge the G-Wizz's, self sustaining cycle boys! I'm on fire tonight, sorry not quite old enough for that  Yesterday I couldn't spell Engineer... Today I are one!
Inventor of the 'Guide-o-Matic automatic wheel alignment tool'
Former long term L322 owner, Up/Down graded to a Classic Tractor!

I agree the many vested interests, lobby groups (IOCs) etc. will not make it easy but also climate change is most definitely starting and governments are coming under increasing pressure to sort the business or pay the damage (literally) of the weather going crazy.

Considering the time it would take to set up a business that creates the kits (hub motors, battery packs, controller etc.) together with the car manufacturers, the timing would be just right is my best guess.

The amount of work that needs to be done to make this a viable business is massive but the question is would you do it to your every day car/bike if it is available and the amount of renewable energy is still progressing at a reasonable pace ??

Also assume that kits for home generation are coming onto the market at very decent prices (PV panels together with hydrogen storage units) so you can even generate a substantial part at home and as well with your car parked outside during the day while you are at work/shopping etc. Excess electricity is either transformed into hydrogen and stored or sold back into the net.

This thing really makes sense if you read the Third Industrial Revolution where a lot of information on the viability of renewable energy based on proper studies is presented. Bottomline is the amount of energy that we receive from the sun every day is more than enough to create what we need, including the expected future growth in energy needs.

Plus that it is clear (and I can see it a bit from the inside) that O&G are becoming economically unviable in the next few decades plus the climate change cost that is going to be massive as well.

To me the idea of retrofitting E-drive systems to fossil fuel vehicles is speeding up of the inevitable: complete transfer from fossil to renewable.

Sorry to disappoint you Mick, I leave the fun stuff to specialists like yourself and enjoy it, let me be the boring serious guy so you can be the fun guy  MY 2010 5.0 SC Galway green and sand interior!!
Have the Faultmate MSV2 Extreme to be tinkering with the settings etc. !!

I would love an old Rolls Royce that would be cheaper to run than a modern petrol car.

I think it's a great idea if you can make the numbers work - go for it.

That's all well and good, but what ever happened to hydrogen powered cars? I thought that looked very promising, as it was in effectively an LPG conversion that ran on hydrogen, and produced water as the exhaust product. Bearing in mind that water is 2 parts hydrogen to 1 part oxygen, and that 90% of this planet is covered in water, especially around Stains, it's not like we ain't got no fuel. Plus, cause it runs on a gas, it's the closest thing to a petrol engine, that's green.

Then there was all this talk about hydrogen fuel cells, wots happened to them? All we seam to hear about nowadays is battery powered, limited range, incendiary devices. Just think of the repercussions of that, there would be no need for car bombs, just crash your G-Wizz, and wait for the lithium polymer batteries to burst into flames

Then there is the economics of this, batteries ware out a lot quicker that an engine, so every 2 - 3 years your service costs suddenly represent about 90% of the conversion cost, have you seen the cost of replacing the batteries in a prius? And that is a hybrid set up, how many more batteries does it take to make electric only?

There's something else that they haven't considered, you come out in the morning to go to work in your electric car and find some pikey has run off with your charging cable , talk about encouraging them. That's like putting nuts on the bird table and expecting the squirrels to leave them alone, it ain't going to happen people. Yesterday I couldn't spell Engineer... Today I are one!
Inventor of the 'Guide-o-Matic automatic wheel alignment tool'
Former long term L322 owner, Up/Down graded to a Classic Tractor!

Kurt, there is already such a thing as a cheaper to run Rolls Royce, over here. It's a pre 1960 Rolls, tax exempt, mot exempt, and runs on classic car insurance. That would represent about £1000 saving over a modern Rolls BMW Royce, and then bearing in mind that your vintage Crew built Roller, has no computers, and is machined to precision by hand to + 1/2 thou / - 0 thou, it isn't going to breakdown at every puddle, due to water ingress and ecu failure, it becomes a very viable mode of transport. Then there is the running costs, as you don't need the spotty faced technician to plug in the computer, you will save a fortune  Yesterday I couldn't spell Engineer... Today I are one!
Inventor of the 'Guide-o-Matic automatic wheel alignment tool'
Former long term L322 owner, Up/Down graded to a Classic Tractor!