https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLoTU9_iCGa6i_C38pwQyg0pBG...
It’s the punchy little m10 motor, 4 speed transmission, and incredibly low curb weight that make these cars fun to drive. You lose all that with an electric conversion.
As an aside, the most powerful F1 engine ever put on the track was made by modifying the little 4-banger m10 found in the BMW 2002. Fun fact.
Supposedly BMW lacked a dyno that went high enough so it's an educated guess what the actual hp was, but definitely over 1,300hp... from a 4-cylinder (turbo charged, and only lasted a few laps, but still) engine!
AKA the 4 speed transmission I mentioned :)
But yes, the vibration, sound, and feel of the incredibly simple (as in stripped down, not unsophisticated) mechanics around you all very much contribute to the special feeling of driving these cars.
My 1976 BMW 2002 is actually my first car. I used to drive it to high school more than half my life ago, and I still drive it today. I’ve driven some other classic cars, luxury and sport, and simply nothing feels like a 2002. Just a beautiful, balanced, timeless design.
There are so few of these cars on the road anymore that I think very little progress is to be made on emissions levels by converting them to electric, especially when you consider that you’re ruining the driving experience.
I have a 84 w123 300D, and would love to add some more power to it. Lightweight hub motors would be great, but any decent size battery would be at least 200lbs+, which is hard to do on a old chasy.
ETA: Internal combustion engines half a century ago had an efficiency of 20%, now they're at 40%. That cuts the fuel you need to carry in half. Electric engines are near 100%, and as I said, going from 90% to 95% efficiency cuts required battery by a bit more than 5%, so peanuts.
Same with going from 99% to 99.5% efficiency. It still reduces the cooling needed by half.
But the motor is not the only thing that needs to be cooled. It’s mainly the battery, which has a narrow operating range. The power electronics that convert AC to DC also need to be cooled.
So you’re halving the cooling needs of the motor, which is nice but small compared to the other two. And even then, total cooling doesn’t impact range that much compared to warming the battery in cold climates.
I think you’ve overstated your case.
If we halve waste-heat generation for a practical widget enough times, then we won't need liquid cooling for that widget at all. If the trend continues and gets good enough, then maybe we can get all the way to a complete passive-cooling snoozefest.
That's pretty boring, but boring is good. The systems we use every day without a thought because they boringly Just Work are, perhaps, our greatest successes.
> I think the cited weight loss comes from energy efficiency gains leading to less battery capacity needed.
So, no, the efficiency gains of electrical engines do not lead to significantly less battery capacity needed.
drop in a tiny, powerful electric motor and a small battery (crammed in whatever location is best for weight distribution), and then wire up a little genny powered off your existing fuel tank that can jump in as a range extender
Series hybrids are great for packaging, though. Parallel and series-parallel commit to certain packaging decisions like having a transmission, or a long, monolithic unit, because it's the mechanical coupling that buys them smaller motors and potentially better efficiency. Series hybrids don't care about any of that, so even though you have bigger motors and potentially higher losses, you have more freedom over where things go.
Personally, I think there's a massive untapped market in converting old cars to hybrid engines. You wouldn't try to upgrade the old engine, you'd design a smaller and more power dense package and rip all of the original gear out. Because electrification lets you cut the size of the engine down so aggressively, this is probably a feasible strategy. As you pointed out, series hybrids are probably best suited to this because of their packaging flexibility. As others have pointed out, there's tremendous potential there for replicating original driving characteristics using software and the electric motor. And if we're being honest, off-road vehicles probably should get rid of the transmission and low range, because electric motor torque is just better. As is, the potential for cars is enormous, but we're getting the worst possible outcomes thanks to legislation.
for my sailboat I am getting rid of a 300lbs diesel and a 30gallon fuel tank with a 45lbs PMAC.
That means I have opened up about 465lbs for batteries.
Now, with a sailboat you're never truly out of range -- but the point stands : these things are so much lighter than ICEs on average that there is a lot of opportunity even with battery weight as it is (and it's getting better daily).
BYD can be lighter because they skip on safety gear and proper structural elements - in my experience.
> BYD can be lighter because they skip on safety gear and proper structural elements - in my experience.
Also, the only cars I’ve ever ridden on that the top of my head literally touches the headliner while sitting in the back seat. Other than that, they seem good?
In this Atto 3, I've ridden in the back a few times and my head does not touch the headliner. I'm 170cm.
The suspension issues seem like a common theme though, they aren’t built as sturdily as most cars on that front.
So a reasonable 75kWh battery pack is going to weigh around 300kg and in future around 200kg. This is... not a lot, actually. To a point where shaving off 20-30 kg from the electric motor weight is going to result in a noticeable performance/price difference.
Teslas also don't have "crazy" weight. Model 3 is 1700kg and a comparable (in size) Ford Focus is 1300kg.
400 kg == 881 lbs, and that is their lightest model with lowest range.
Newer model Tundras are over 5k lbs, but that is also crazy.
Tesla Model 3. Curb Weight: 3721 lb [2]
The Tesla model S (actually more equivalent to the M3) is over 4500 lbs [https://www.edmunds.com/tesla/model-s/2026/features-specs/].
No one is realistically saving weight by switching to batteries. Because batteries are heavy for the energy and gasoline is hella energy dense.
I looked a bit on doing the same, but came to the conclusion that it will be expensive to fulfil racing rules requiring the boat to be able to maintain speed for 5 hours ie around 25-30 NM range.
As it is now, I have about 500 NM diesel range on my boat, which is basically 3-4 days continuous runtime. Cutting it down to 25nm and 5 hours requires minimally 100kWh.
For a blue water boat, 500 NM is not quite acceptable, but can be fixed with jerrycans for a couple of dollars. An all electric blue water boat would clock in at an unrealistic 2MWh of batteries with a weight at least 20 metric tonnes. 10x the load capacity of my boat.
Don't forget rudder and keel - especially if sailing off the coast of western europe...
[0] https://www.westmarine.com/bg-h3000-paddlewheel-sensor-w-pla...
https://www.thedrive.com/news/jeep-tells-4xe-hybrid-owners-t...
Cd will never be the dominating factor at speeds which do not produce significant aerodynamic drag.
That helped it sink in, thank you
That seems like a pretty cool cheat-code to get more power. Perhaps it will mean you will start having cars with more distance from the ground to accommodate the large dia motor wheels.