A Uruguayan company teaches people how to turn regular cars into EVs

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The Uruguayan company teaching people how to turn regular cars into EVs

Turning gas-fueled cars into electric ones can be four times cheaper than buying a new EV.

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Fun fact almost 100% of Uruguays energy consumption (other than vehicles) comes from renewable energy
This is a really cool idea. I never considered that something like this could happen.
I’m guessing all the parts that actually make the car go are getting replaced. I wonder if this will catch on and we will see a resurgence of old cars being retrofitted.
- It's been a thing for quite a while. I want to say about 10 years ago I was watching a bunch of off grid YouTube videos and more than a couple people turned their cars into short range EVs.
  More recently I've seen a few videos from a professional shop in Cali that does it for classic cars, also you have Jerry Rig Everything converting a Humvee.
  It's been a thing and will probably end up being more and more common
  
  I'm pretty sure people were doing this in the 90's or even earlier. Obviously the range was shit but they were only for local commuting.
  The very first cars were electric.
  
  I’ll have to check out his video on this. I think it’s a really fascinating idea.
  Electric cars are just starting to be a thing where I live, but maybe in a few years, I’ll check this out for myself.
- there's a company that is doing it in behalf of Volkswagen for their beetles/bugs of yesteryear.
  did.. did I just write out yesteryear and use it in a sentence? wtf
- On the whole, car should be lighter (-engine & parts,-muffler,-fuel tank) ... depending on # batteries needed (+ holding structure + cables)(might lose the back seat). Same Transmission/drive train needs.
Very surprised at the price claims; in the US, doing a conversion has been expensive enough that it's rarely done
- Which mostly boils down to labor prices. You can build cheap EV conversions if you have free labor and don't care too much about range and charging speed
- US parts prices are ... WOW ... There was a time when there were junkyards, guess there aren't so many as once.

10 comments