Car is in getting bumper fixed, so have a Hybrid while that’s happening and my God it’s a nice drive plus the saving in fuel that I’m sure we would all appreciate right now.

I haven’t got 30k to handover for an EV, but have seen you can get your normal car changed for less than 5k? Has anyone done it? I’d prefer to get it changed to Hybrid over fully electric, but any feedback appreciated

[More information and pricing](https://www.irishevs.com/how-electric-car-conversion-works)

7 comments

  2. I live in Australia and just had a look. It’s readily available but it’s focussed very much on converting classic cars and is very expensive. A consultation is free but to have the car properly looked over to have the ev installed runs over $100. One place doesn’t do conversions on any car purchased after 1995.

  3. Not really true.

    You need a car that will do all it’s basic functions easily without an engine, so steering, brakes and electrics (windows, radio, dash etc). You also need it to be rear wheel drive and manual so that you can “easily” just connect a electric motor to the gearbox.

    This leaves pretty much only old cars, think 90’s and back. Otherwise it’s a thousand here, a thousand there solving problems.

  4. I can’t see it working with modern cars that are drive-by-wire compared to older cars where all the critical functions were mechanical instead of fully electrical; steering and throttle for example.

    That’s before you even think of the insurance issues surrounding modifications of any kind.

    I had Axa gently threaten to cancel my insurance when I asked would it affect my policy if I swapped the alloys on my car at the time, for a different set of OEM Toyota alloys with the exact same wheel/tyre size from a newer model.

    I cant imagine anything outside of specialist classic car policies insuring an EV conversion.

    ​

    There is a UK company I heard about on the radio offering a DIY kit for the Land Rover for £24k. They have a chassis on body design to make the conversions simpler, but that’s also a vehicle whose design hasn’t changed in decades. So that’s probably the newest vehicle in terms of registration year that could take an EV conversion.

    [https://www.electrogenic.co.uk/cars/land-rover-defender-agricultural](https://www.electrogenic.co.uk/cars/land-rover-defender-agricultural)

  5. No where in the article linked or on the New Electric website can you buy the kit. Not much good if they can’t link to the €5k conversion kit they are saying they can fit.

    A quick Google and I can’t find any EU suppliers with conversion kits for €5k, most start at €7k without charger or batteries!

  6. €5k for a DIY job on a classic RWD car, maybe. Have you ever swapped out an engine?

    Hybrid conversions are not really a thing. You can’t just turn a standard ICE car into a hybrid, you would be replacing the entire powertrain. Putting a new traction battery in an old Prius would be a more feasible project.

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