In reply to Ashyukun (Robert) :
FYI, there was an electric DMC-12 parked in the lot outside the convention center at SEMA 2019. I think it had Leaf powertrain bits.
In reply to Ashyukun (Robert) :
FYI, there was an electric DMC-12 parked in the lot outside the convention center at SEMA 2019. I think it had Leaf powertrain bits.
In reply to Keith Tanner :
There have been electric DMC-12s around for a while- back when I first got mine going about a decade ago there was one using some of the old motors that have been used for homebrew electric conversions for a while and a berk-ton of standard auto batteries in the front. 7-8 years ago DMC themselves were promoting an electric conversion model they were (ostensibly- none of their E36 M3 like this ever actually makes it to market...) 'planning' on selling for like $100k.
I'll be wholly unsurprised if a number of us end up converting ours to electric going forward- it's always been a 'futuristic' car so having it be electric makes sense. And pretty much all of the potential drawbacks of electric- especially the range problem- cease to be a problem when it's a fun/exotic car that is only ever really driven around town.
In reply to Ashyukun (Robert) :
I think I remember those; they were easily $80K a pop but maxed out at 60-80 miles of range at the time, and were using Leaf cells because they didn't 'need' liquid cooling. Their other issue was they kinda Osbourne'd themselves; battery tech has advanced massively and GM's Ultimum tech might be a perfect use for their conversions, because you just have such a small area to install the batteries. If they will do it, it'll only be in the next few years when you have a decent spread of techs to try out.
In reply to Ashyukun (Robert) :
And pretty much all of the potential drawbacks of electric- especially the range problem- cease to be a problem when it's a fun/exotic car that is only ever really driven around town.
Now, this raises an interesting question, at least to me. On rarely used electric vehicles, how will that affect battery life and longevity?
Think 10-20 years down the road at mecum, a 1,000 mile 2019 Rimac comes up on the block. How will storage have affected the life? Would they take a charge? Would they have started to leak like alkaline batteries do? What would range from full drop like?
In the same vein, what would long term storage be like? Do you totally drain the batteries, leave it half charge, keep it on a tender the whole time? Somehow remove all the batteries and store them separately?
I've never stored a vehicle that long or had any interest in restoring a barn find, on assumptions all plastics and rubber will need replaced from lack of use and maintenance. How would the electric motors be after sitting unused for years, decades?
I just hadn't thought of that aspect of the electric vehicles before.
Tesla says to leave it plugged in. That gives the car the ability to manage the battery pack, and it has a lot of tools at its disposal. They're a lot more sophisticated than your phone or laptop.
A car that's been left abandoned for years with a discharged pack? I'd expect a new battery or significant rehabilitation would be required. Kinda like how a gas system will be full of rust and/or lacquer.
In reply to RevRico :
As Kieth said, you'd let the onboard computer do the work of maintenance of the pack which involves targeted specific use and likely self-draining intentionally for long-term storage. If for whatever reason you didn't have that- which would only be seen with something custom designed, like for an Ebike- draining to a degree between 65% to 30% steadily and keeping it stored at a consistent temp is key.
To rehab packs that weren't stored properly involves monitoring internal resistance as you very steadily push power into it. My 18650 battery charger/tester unit will start those cells as low as 50mah and increase it as long as the internal resistance and temperature don't increase beyond set points.
In reply to GIRTHQUAKE :
The ideal situation would likely be to only install the batteries where the fuel tank currently is as it's pretty low to the ground and the car is already balanced for the weight of the fuel to be there- but that isn't a huge amount of space either, and it's an odd shape (essentially an elongated triangle). There's a bit more space that could likely be had if you took advantage of the original battery bay behind the passenger seat and the storage compartment on the opposite side behind the driver (mine currently has a small custom sub enclosure there). But honestly, I'd probably only need 60-80 miles of range for 90% of how I tended to drive the car when it was running well- and if there were charging stations along the way I could take it further out.
DMC-Houston comes up with something 'new' that they're planning on selling every two years or so to drum up publicity and attention. That I can remember, they've 'built' (quotes because I know in a few cases they largely borrowed hardware from other people) a supercharged DMC-12, the electric one, then they were supposed to be taking advantage of a law to let them built and title 'new' DMC-12s from new old-stock parts, then they were supposed to be making ones that were made from new old-stock parts except they'd have a modern engine so it could pass emissions. About the only thing I've seen them actually follow through on is their 'new build' cars- where they take a wrecked car and keep just enough of the original (usually body/frame) and replace everything else with new-old-stock so it's essentially a 'new' car with the VIN of an original-production DMC-12. Or in other words- it didn't really matter to them that the car would be obsolete almost immediately, it was only made to drum up media attention.
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