Electric Kit Cars

[Composite Guru]

I currently have an S3 Elise and in the future wonder how easy it would be to convert to electric if I needed to. They did it to the Tesla Roadster so can't be hard.

Maybe designing a retrofit kit would be a worthwhile project.

[Stuart Mills]

TheFreak said:

Interested to see the electric Exocet development. We race the dinosaur juice version and think the handling and balance is great. Will it be keeping the same sort of weight distribution? Are the batteries going to be lighter than the the cast iron lump up front usually?
Will you need some ballast over the rear as no fuel tank now?

The electric motor weighs nearly 40 kg whereas an MX5 tank that is full of fuel also weighs about 70 kg.
A dressed MX5 engine/gearbox/propshaft/battery/exhaust/subframes/PPF/radiator are a lot heavier than the 112 kg battery pack I have up front.
Hopefully the delightful balance that comes standard on an MX5/Exocet will be retained on my EV Exocet. Or should that be Ev ocet!

Edited by Stuart Mills on Friday 29th March 16:38

[Spunagain]

Composite Guru said:

I currently have an S3 Elise and in the future wonder how easy it would be to convert to electric if I needed to. They did it to the Tesla Roadster so can't be hard.

Maybe designing a retrofit kit would be a worthwhile project.

The challenge with converting an Elise S3 is that the vehicle licensing rules state you have to keep all of the existing safety features which means you will have to find a way of getting the ABS systems to talk to the motor controller - not impossible but not exactly plug and play.

I think a better/easier platform using off the shelf parts would be as S1 or S2 Elise which has no ABS and no Servo or PAS so no need for a vacuum pump or PAS pump (or electrics).

[Composite Guru]

Spunagain said:

Composite Guru said:

I currently have an S3 Elise and in the future wonder how easy it would be to convert to electric if I needed to. They did it to the Tesla Roadster so can't be hard.

Maybe designing a retrofit kit would be a worthwhile project.

The challenge with converting an Elise S3 is that the vehicle licensing rules state you have to keep all of the existing safety features which means you will have to find a way of getting the ABS systems to talk to the motor controller - not impossible but not exactly plug and play.

I think a better/easier platform using off the shelf parts would be as S1 or S2 Elise which has no ABS and no Servo or PAS so no need for a vacuum pump or PAS pump (or electrics).

Good question. I didn't think of that.

Logged.