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Comment by neilv | Hacker News Reader

Given that battery fires and automobile crashes happen, and that there are business and legal cultures around that for stock vehicles...

Does this "ZombieVerter" have a high chance of being blamed for an incident involving death/injury or very expensive property damage?

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Well, if you modify a vehicle, generally you need to take it back to your DMV / TUV / MOT for inspection. Those are the bodies responsible for determining that your car is road legal. And if you don't have a proper BMS, emergency cutoff, adequate cooling and engineering, it won't be certified road legal. Not sure why an EV conversion should be treated any differently to an ICE conversion.

And when you're sued and/or criminally charged, your lawyers can bring that up that your vehicle passed inspection (unless it was still being built in your garage), before the lithium battery fire that involved the "ZombieVerter that you built from plans you found on the Internet".

Even if it can eventually be proven (to the judge/jury) that the ZombieVerter performed perfectly, and that you were not at all negligent or reckless, that's going to be drawing suspicion and blame.

While defense costs bankrupt you.

> Does this "ZombieVerter" have a high chance of being blamed for an incident involving death/injury or very expensive property damage?

No.

Dude, I built my own fuel system for my car.

I just put 43 liters of gasoline in the tank this morning.

The rail is as much as 65psi, and it's inches from a hot exhaust manifold.

It's fine. People can be competent.

It's a special case, but in times like this I think about the antique cars. There are still Model T owners out there driving around with oil-soaked cotton brakes. That's the same material my pants are made out of. And it's not one brake per wheel, it's one brake for the entire car! Also, the wheels are made from wood.

This is not only street legal, but insurable too.

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