- cross-posted to:
- technology@beehaw.org
- cross-posted to:
- technology@beehaw.org
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Retrofitting kits, many of which are available on online marketplaces like Alibaba or MercadoLibre, often don’t guarantee a “minimum level of safety and quality for the retrofit unit,” Rojas said.
They’ve been telling us the same lying bullshit about computers and phones for 40 fucking years.
I have dealt with a massive number of Li-Ion batteries and never punctured one, always properly disposed of them.
Like, a lot of this shit isn’t hard, and a lot of the pooh-poohing about safety comes from often are industry plants who basically exist to gatekeep people from being able to be in full control of the things they purchase.
Since the practice is largely a DIY process, there are no official statistics on the retrofitting industry in Latin America. Many retrofitting jobs are done “by tinkerers who seek to extend the life of their petrol cars since they can’t afford a new electric one,” Adolfo Rojas, president of the Association of Entrepreneurs to Promote Electric Vehicles in Peru, told Rest of World.
Hmmm, let’s see if we can find more about this Rojas guy.
https://www.bnamericas.com/en/news/national-agency-pitched-to-advance-electromobility-in-peru
The creation of a national electromobility agency will be crucial to incorporate electric vehicles in Peru, according to local market executive Adolfo Rojas.
Rojas, advisory council president of the country’s electric vehicle business development and promotion association AEDiVE, made the comment during Prensa Grupo’s ElectroTransporte online event.
Agency participants would include public institutions, industry groups, associations, academia, and cooperation funds, he said.
A broader package of economic incentives will also be fundamental, from tax breaks to preferential insurance, added Rojas, who highlighted the opportunities from the build-out of electromobility for domestic industry, such as development of lithium batteries.
Another key driver will be the implementation of charging infrastructure, said Rojas, who announced that AEDiVE is drafting a related national expansion plan with highway concessionaires, power distributors and companies interested in installing such infrastructure that will be released in two months.
The energy and mines ministry recently released a draft decree to approve the regulation for the installation and operation of electromobility charging infrastructure.
No offense intended to Rojas, who I’m sure is a decent enough of a person, but the related article I found about him makes him certainly sound like he’s a traditional business guy bureaucrat and so that says to me that at least part of the reason he speaks against conversions is because conversions impact all the business plans and bureaucracy he is working on.
By his LinkedIn, he’s an executive of some type at Sustainablearth LATAM, a solar company.
Just personal opinion, Rojas is biased. Doesn’t make him a bad person, but people within the industry generally don’t like people fixing their own devices. That’s a service they want people to have to pay for.
And let’s not forget all the “professionally” built cars with lithium fires and explosions. The pros fuck up just as much as the hobbies, possibly more often.
Yeah, I’m debating getting a Chevy Bolt, but I’m a bit worried about them catching on fire.
I’d be a lot more comfortable buying from a local retrofit org, because they have a lot more to lose if things go sideways. Most of the issues are from shoddy work, meaning underpaid workers who don’t care enough to do a good job soldering leads or whatever. A local shop that needs sales in order to eat will care a lot more about making sure the battery packs and whatnot are high quality.
You really shouldn’t be worried about Bolts specifically. Way more likely to have an ICE vehicle catch fire than an EV.
And that massive Bolt recall means the used affected ones all have newer batteries anyways
Right, but an ICE vehicle will catch fire only when overheated, which is probably driving up a mountain pass or something. I’m not going to be doing that (this is purely for commute, so I’ll be in city the whole time), so I can absolutely manage my risk on that.
The Bolts that catch fire do so when charging. I’ll be charging in my garage, which is attached to my house and there’s a lot of flammable stuff there (dry leaves, wood chips, shoes, paper, my other ICE car, etc).
So if my ICE catches fire, I’ll probably have advanced warning, but even if not, I’ll be awake and alert (I’m driving, after all). If my EV catches fire, it’ll probably happen in my garage, which has no smoke alarms (why would it?), and even if it did, it would be muffled by the insulation between it and the house (I sleep on the opposite side of the house from the garage). I could park it outside, but it gets cold here and I’d honestly rather fill up gas every other week than de-ice my car every morning before work.
I’m 100% fine doing level 1 charging exclusively with a low max charge if that eliminates the risk. I can WFH if it’s not sufficiently charged, and I have a backup vehicle as well in case of emergencies, so I’m okay with the slow charge. But I haven’t found anything conclusive that slow-charging eliminates the risk. If it does, I’ll probably get one this year.
One of the temporary fixes for the Chevy Bolt fires was to update the software to detect if the battery was about to go up and then honk the horn to warn everyone which I think is hilarious.
And all of the petro cars accidents caused by failing vehicles, which is what these are replacing.
I mean I’m sure 98% of these people would take a new car for the same price and maintenance schedule (not a subscription to a car…). I mean I would, despite also being a big fan of DIY and self reliance. That said they aren’t, so instead this option makes sense for people like us.
I had a Kia Rio. They sent out a safety recall warning that an ABS leak could cause a short and it could catch fire (this is after the big problem of them being easy to steal).
They’re was no fix at the time. The only advice on the recall was “avoid parking near structures” in case it set fire to buildings.
Months later the fix was available: a smaller fuse that would blow before the short got hot enough to burn.
Ev Resto-mods are where it’s at
Oh hell yeah, I can keep my old toyota FOREVER
You know that “men only want one thing and it’s fucking disgusting” meme?
For me it’s an electric Toyota Hilux. And not a new one, unless it’s one of the originals that’s been sealed away for decades.
unless it’s one of the originals that’s been sealed away for decades.
Can’t you just beam it out of storage, O’Brien?
Look, the temporal prime directive means I shouldn’t even be talking to you.
But if I had my ship you bet your arse.
Sign me up
I’d be down to build that if I could source the truck in no holes condition and batteries that wouldn’t bankrupt me.
EV or (bio)diesel plug in hybrid Chevy C10. Battery can cover most of my use cases, but every now and then, I need to do a long haul.
the ones ive seen are either hobbyist janky or crazy expensive. im surprised this isnt a bigger thing already, but i dont want to pay > $30K to end up with 100 mile range and zero reliability assurance.
I’ve been following Edison Motors and they look the most promising for pickup trucks. You can get the electric Mustang motor as a new crate engine if you don’t want to pull a Tesla rear end from a totaled car.
Ooh, I’ll have to remember them in the unlikely event that I ever have money. I want nothing more than a 80s F150 retrofit to be all electric.
Although safety is certainly a legitimate issue, I can almost guarantee that car manufacturers will use that as an excuse to kill this form of competition – yet another way in which capitalism is dooming our species to extinction.
A company in my city created an EV conversion kit for any cars years ago. As they could not get certification for all models, they made a partnership with the constructor and managed to have certification for only 1 model (Renault Master, a utility truck) and now the company is controlled by Renault (the constructor).
They indeed killed the competition…
It’s almost like they should be open sourcing the method, so it can be accessible to anyone.
Unfortunately open sourcing is not an option without certification, cause vehucles will not be allowed to go on roads.
At least here in europe
As long as the car is inspected and passed after the fact I don’t see why you would need certification for the actual conversion. Of course that’s a big risk on the owner, but if you’re pretty sure you know what you’re doing it’s not that much of a risk
I test drove an electric conversion vw bug and vw gti 25 years ago. I saw but did not drive electric porsche 914s and fiat 124s 20 years ago. I remember seeing electric miata conversions. This is not new and it should continue
If I had the money and knew people who could do this type of stuff, you bet I’d wanna buy my favorite 90s vehicle and turn it into an EV
Edit:
Tried looking up the vehicle because I wanted to remember what it’s called, but I can’t for the life of me remember what it is, even after attempting to look it up. All I remember is that it was potentially a Chevrolet with 3 seats up front, 3 in the back, and a little divider thing in the middle of the back seats you could pull out.
I absolutely loved it and it was a sad day when we had to get rid of it. It may have been a safety hazard, with the back heating up and burning (thankfully it didn’t actually reach the seats, just heated them up, or there could have been 3 burned minors, myself included), but I still love it since it was the family car.
I’m definitely gonna have to continue searching for the name, using my limited car knowledge.
Edit Edit:
I’m not a car person, so shoot me for this if you want, but it was actually a Chrysler Concord. Again, I’m not a car person, so I don’t know much about vehicles other than basic things like how to change a tire or on changing the oil on a 2000s Toyota Town and Country.
My mechanically inclined father came to the rescue as to what it was.
Chevrolet Caprice? The impala also had a bench seat option in the front to the 90s I think
You could have an electric Saturn! Lol
Sounds like a Dodge Neon
That description doesnt give us much to work with!
To be fair, it’s been over a decade since I’ve seen it, so I can only remember vague images of it.
Edit:
I couldn’t even remember the right brand. Chrysler Concord.
I love my 2010 Mazda 3. It’s basically the same platform as the Ford focus from the same year. If they were able to eventually make a Focus EV, then I’d bet it’s possible to do the same with my Mazda.
But Ford in their infinite wisdom ended production of all sedans. They do not make a single sedan right now
(For the US market. They still make sedans for Europe)
Pshhh. Does Europe even exist? Next you’ll try to tell me there’s other continents with actual people on them too or something crazy like that
I’m pretty confident the US doesn’t exist. The stories I’ve heard about it are so over the top they cannot possibly be real.
I stared at that thumbnail for a solid 10 seconds trying to figure out why there was a water cooled GPU in someone’s trunk
I was having flashbacks to Cars 2.
Thank you. I saw it and immediately went to Miles Axelrod.
Ay, yeah. Electric Fiero!
In my country any modification of any importance is required to be signed off by a mechanical engineer. If I were that engineer, I would never sign any of these conversions. Too much liability, especially with old cars of unknown integrity.
here almost any automotive mechanic shop can do it
Das awesome
I really wish I could afford an EV but it’s just way out of my price range the damn things are so expensive and they don’t come down in price all that much on the second hand market either.
I can’t really even get anything from my current car except the scrap metal value. It still works it’s just not a desirable vehicle.
So for me I’m much better off just keeping this current car until the maintenance of it becomes prohibitively expensive. That’s the problem really, no one’s been incentivized to buy electric vehicles unless they’re in the market for a new car anyway, and have a lot of money so don’t mind spending a bit extra, which is a really limited subset of the population.
