Electric Conversion....I don’t get it!!

Following a conversation with a neighbour this morning about the planned conversion of his old VW Bay Window camper to electric. I’ve been left stumped - Although I can appreciate his desire to ‘save the planet’ and wanting to preserve the longevity of his beloved van, I just don’t get.

Firstly it’s the cost, the cost of a conversion is north of £20k. That okay, I suspect you could do this cheaper if you do the conversion yourself. But then you would have to source the motor, batteries and all the other ancillaries. That’s not to mention inspection costs. I would assume you would be faced with strict stringent test/inspection (there’s a lot to go wrong).

Secondly, are electrical vehicles really a viable choice in 2021? I can appreciate we will all be encouraged to drive fully electric or automated vehicles in the next 20-30 years, but at the moment the infrastructure is just not there. Believe me, my main daily drive is a Hybrid which is great when in the combustion engine mode, electric not so much. It’s a nightmare finding charging points and when you do they’re either not working (normally the case) or they have been taken by someone else. Home charging is great, perfect solution, but what about if you have on street parking, or what happens on a long journey. Availability is only going to get worse as more people buy electric. It could be suggested that I am all doom and gloom, and point out that the infrastructure is going to improve - of course it is, I accept that but at a cost which will inevitably be passed on to motorists. My daily drive was new in August, but since I October I have not been able to charge it due to a recall. Indeed, for almost 4 months BMW have instructed owners not to charge their vehicles and only use the combustion engine whilst they workout a solution. Now my point being, if you drive fully electric vehicles what do you do if you can’t charge it? Especially if a company like BMW are struggling with reliability, question must be asked of the reliability of conversions.

Lastly, I’m not against electric but I feel a pragmatic approach is needed. Yes we all want to save the environment, but are all electric vehicles really practical in 2021. If you really want an electric vehicle, why not purchase an older one and restore that (obviously wear in batteries is expensive) - personally I don’t see the benefits of paying £20k for a conversion of classic that is infrequently driven.

Absolutely I could be wrong and remain open to others opinions, but I just don’t get it. I would be really interested to hear if you or someone you know has done this and what their experiences were. To do this, I think you need deep pockets which I don’t have and a real desire to want electric.

Electric vehicles are the privilege of the rich. The government should be giving these away and then tax the elastictrickery

doriz said:

Electric vehicles are the privilege of the rich. The government should be giving these away and then tax the elastictrickery

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There’s no where to charge them, nor will there be for the next 20 years!

Landyfox said:

There’s no where to charge them, nor will there be for the next 20 years!

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Get the pikeys to work it out, they never struggle to find free leccy

The infrastructure is there and Range/charge times aren't bad.

The only "problem" is they don't sell nearly enough of them to make ICE obsolete by 2030 or even 2040 even if they were selling 2 million of them per year that still wouldn't be enough..

in 2020 just under 5% of all new cars sold were BEV and that included Hybrid/PHEV

But to be fair the wheezy gutless rattly old piece of shít that powers those old busses could do with being replaced, a Briggs and Stretton 12hp Flathead would be an upgrade.

What I don't get is the 100k conversions on cars worth 20k.

If you want to spend 50k restoring an old Rolls Royce with the original V8 people will call you crazy, but spend 100k converting it and you're onto a winner

Lunaz want a quarter of a mill for a converted 2 door rangie! even when you can get an original car for a 10th of that!

Its a Niche market!!

Well Henry B, dunno where you are but current infrastructure in my area is poor to non existent. Charging times need to improve greatly.
A pre lockdown weekend trip to The Highlands would have taken an extra day in charging alone if I had gone electric.
Money would be better spent on hydrogen and similar rather than electricity that we haven't got.

Are you really suggesting that the infrastructure is in place to accommodate full electric vehicles? How do on street motorist charge their vehicles? I could be wrong, but I cannot see how the infrastructure that is in place is suitable.

Landyfox said:

Are you really suggesting that the infrastructure is in place to accommodate full electric vehicles? How do on street motorist charge their vehicles? I could be wrong, but I cannot see how the infrastructure that is in place is suitable.

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There are charge points for EV's

Henry_b said:

There are charge points for EV's

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But not even close to being enough. That’s my point.

It will come, but by then we will have moved onto something else.
I doubt the infrastructue is there to handle mass ev buying/charging, everything in ths country is at or beyond its design limits, after all we cannot even keep the roads open after a minor fender bender.
Look at any vids of the USA involving roads/railways etc and actually look at the hardware, it is all worn out, and we like many countries are on the same downward path.

It will all end in tears, I know it
As an old duffer, I doubt it will have any effect in my time left (sorry for all you younger folk!)

My Old Landy said:

It will all end in tears, I know it
As an old duffer, I doubt it will have any effect in my time left (sorry for all you younger folk!)

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Mee too!

I think me island has seven charging points so we will be fine going all electric

Henry_b said:

There are charge points for EV's

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Where I work there are about 1200 employees, we have four charging points.
I have not seen more than a dozen charging points at any Motorway service station. You would be queuing down the hard shoulder !
What about terraced streets and flats ? If this has any chance of working we need to have some sort of inductive charging.
But the question then is; where does all this electric come from ?

Look at the youtube videos from the US, for every car on a supercharger the rate drops by half. At the moment most have only one or 2 cars. Unless the grid is big enough the charge rates drop massively once the stations get used.
Re OP - VW camper. I'm pro-electric but even I have to agree I makes no sense. Its a fully constructed vehicle with no manufacture carbon footprint. It will now create a massive carbon and heavy metal footprint making a huge battery with rare and toxic metals. Main sources places like DR Congo an illegal mines. Then on the road the one vehicle that makes no sense electric is a camper unless it can do 500 plus miles as there's no point going 50 miles to camp in a field, then 2 days there and back. Unless of course you only drive to campsites with a generator or high power charging , some "wilderness trip".
Look at the youtube videos about VW camper conversions. All in California where they are warm, all about acceleration and nothing about range, all filmed in town.

I'm working on a solution...bear with..

Ok, I've applied for a patent before any of you lot try and nick my cunning idea.
one of these fitted to each wheel.
The faster you drive will actually increase your range.!
If you fit 2 to each wheel then you won't have to use a mains charger ever again probably!

rob1miles said:

Re OP - VW camper. I'm pro-electric but even I have to agree I makes no sense. Its a fully constructed vehicle with no manufacture carbon footprint. It will now create a massive carbon and heavy metal footprint making a huge battery with rare and toxic metals.

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This could be eliminated if salvaged motor and batteries are used, which is actually preferable to those items going to land fill, or being recycled in some way.

I can see a lot of sense in using salvaged electronic components to improve the performance, economy, reliability and enjoyment of something like an old VW bus, especially as those things are horrible to look after, and dreadfully unreliable too.

BUT Electricity is the devils fuel and is killing the planet.................This from a statement issued by the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders


Responding to a YouGov poll, 87% of UK adults said they were unaware of the latest Euro-6 vehicle emission technology, while 54% incorrectly blamed cars and commercial vehicles as the biggest cause of air pollution in the UK. Just under one in five (19%) of people surveyed correctly identified power stations as the biggest contributors of nitrogen oxides (NOx). In fact, it would take 42 million Euro-6 diesel cars (almost four times the number on the roads) to generate the same amount of NOx as one UK coal-fired power station.