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Comment by russellbeattie | Hacker News Reader

I would love to see a fad in California of small, lightweight, convertible electric cars. I'd love an electric 1957 Porsche Speedster style car to zip around town in. No luxuries needed - just enough to meet regulations. Take a $14,000 Chevy Spark, cut off the roof, swap the engine for an electric motor and I'd be happy as can be, even with only 100 miles range.

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It's not that easy, though. Safety regulations are completely different now compared to 1957, using your Porsche example. Bumper and ride heights, crumple zones, etc. All these factors would make it very difficult to just recreate vintage vehicles while still being street-legal.

I think they were talking about converting a 1957 corvette. personally, I think that the closest you'll get will either be a Miata conversion or a z3 conversion. realistically, there's not enough room to convert either of those to be more than a novelty at the moment

as for something new, I still hold out hope that Mazda will go electric and come up with a nice new electric Miata, but I'm not holding my breath.

That's why I also used a hypothetical electric convertible Chevy Spark as an example, as it's being sold today, has minimum frills, but still meets regulations.

Check out the Fiat 500e. The 2021 will be Fiat’s own design, but older ones are basically Bosch internals stuffed into a Fiat 500 shell. Cheap off lease ones are available and so far (6 months in) dead reliable. And a very fun ride.

Smart sells an electric convertable, just not in the US.

I'd buy a Suzuki Swift in a heartbeat if it were available.

Definitely would get a Suzuki Jimny, a jeep on a budget.

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