Electric Vehicle conversion for a T1N (2024)

Lol on the horses to autos era grousings, that is probably dead on.

I was sitting at a coffee shop a few mornings ago and a large and shiny new fedX electric van cruised by.
I thought wow look at all the space that thing looks like it must have on the inside. A few years from now I’m pretty sure we’ll be seeing urban campers built out of them. Not road trip campers, just local campers (aka VanHobo).
With the amount of roof space they have a decent solar array would fit, like 1600-2000w bifacials and still room for a maxair and maybe an ac unit.
Ohh the possibilities.

And someday, AWD versions with a 500mi range, and a decent charging infrastructure. Someday. Not tomorrow, but someday.
I looked at images online but didn’t see one identical to what I saw, it wasn’t either of the 2 below. Maybe it was a new beta test van or something.
Lol re the shorty.

lindenengineering said:

See Also

Sportscraft® Swivel Seat Base for Sprinter 2002-20242003 mercedes-benz sprinter 2500 diesel for sale by owner - Los Angeles, CA - craigslist

can anything electric exceed that of a standard diesel T1N van.

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Depending on what evaluation criteria is used there is plenty of ways an electric converted t1n could exceed the performance of the original drivetrain. In fact it's patently obvious! In many regions switching to electric would reduce the operating costs by as much as 40%.

I'm not particularly trying to convince you or change your mind, if straight up math and hard numbers don't influence you at all then there's little point.

Even from an economic standpoint for a mid-range commuter or short-range delivery van EVs have superior cost of ownership.

Heck a plumber friend of mine switched to using an F-150 lightning for his local service business purely because of the cost savings on fuel and being able to use its on board inverter to power his tools. He's as far right on the political spectrum as you can imagine, but numbers don't lie.

I recently sold my 24-year-old diesel commuter car. It went to a good home with somebody who needed a cheap and reasonably reliable vehicle. I kind of felt sorry for them though as they will have to deal with the maintenance issues and ongoing cost of ownership associated with any ice vehicle. My new EV charges from my solar array and my fuel costs are essentially zero. Aside from tires and every 30k miles and brakes every 100K miles the maintenance on it is minimal. History on this particular ev battery pack shows that I'll get about 250k miles or 16 years before it drops below 80% of its original capacity. I expect my total cost of ownership will be well under 70% of what a comparable ice vehicle will be 15 years down the road.

Rocksnsalt said:

Lol on the horses to autos era grousings, that is probably dead on.

I was sitting at a coffee shop a few mornings ago and a large and shiny new fedX electric van cruised by.
I thought wow look at all the space that thing looks like it must have on the inside. A few years from now I’m pretty sure we’ll be seeing urban campers built out of them. Not road trip campers, just local campers (aka VanHobo).
With the amount of roof space they have a decent solar array would fit, like 1600-2000w bifacials and still room for a maxair and maybe an ac unit.
Ohh the possibilities.

And someday, AWD versions with a 500mi range. Someday.
I looked at images online but didn’t see one identical to what I saw, it wasn’t either of the 2 below. Maybe it was a new beta test van or something.
Lol re the shorty.View attachment 305311View attachment 305314

Click to expand...

I could definitely get behind electric panel vans like that as the base for a conversion. To be useful for longer distance road tripping charging infrastructure needs to step up with 200 KW chargers. But those are already in the works. Figure about 10 years before it's common enough to be a reasonable choice. At which point plenty of these delivery Vans should be coming off of fleet service.

lindenengineering said:

A question in all honesty
What is a four to six year old electric car worth ?
The common mantra is what is a 6 YEAR OLD cell phone worth.,
Bearing in mind that we have run Prius and Lexus hybrids as business vehicles for more than 12 years now.
Dennis

Click to expand...

Well, Kelly Blue Book says a 6 year old Tesla Model 3 with 45k miles is worth about $25k +/-. Several are offered in that range. It's worth more than a Lexus ES or a Honda Accord. Now, if it has 120k miles, it's only worth $10k +/-. So, yes the expected battery replacement really reduces the value. But for an average commuter who doesn't put tremendous miles on it, it holds up.

Regards,

Mark

Yes demand and sales of E cars has slowed - both new and used.
So values/prices have dropped.

Other vehicle sales including Sprinters have slowed and prices reduced too, and from what I’m seeing used Sprinter prices are tanking.
I mean even Toyota dealers have all kinds of inventory on the lot now.

One can rant and grouse against them all one wants, E vehicles are not going away.

The pricing of EVs on the market now is just supply and demand. Telsa and other mid market pseudo luxury makers overshot demand last quarter, which is driving used prices down a bit. Higher interest rates on auto loans doesn't help. Combine that with the tax rebate on some new models, and most folks skip lightly used. That is what I did, I could get a new EV for the same price as a lightly used one last year, and that same pressure pushed used EVs down.

It wasn't too long ago that a shortage of EVs in several segments resulted in new EV prices which were not far off new! So I think its foolish to jump to the conclusion used EVs are garbage because the pricing is low currently.

I also wouldn't compare the early Tesla battery pack life to newer variants. It is pretty common to see EVs with >150k miles and 85-90% of new battery capacity. Out and out battery failures are pretty rare. On early EVs they were about the same rate as engine/transmission failures at lower miles. On newer EVs they are significantly less. Unlike an ICE which will meltdown if a coolant pump wears out, or a belt breaks, batteries tend to have a predictable capacity loss over time/miles, and only suffer from sudden drops very late in their life.

With most EVs moving to LFP battery flavor degradation is even less of an issue. LFP EV packs will outlast the chassis in many cases. I wouldn't be surprised in 10 years to see a brisk business buying LFP EVs with worn out interiors, doing a refurbish with a few new bushings, and reselling them for a tidy profit. With ICE there isn't much value to that, because at 200k miles the drivetrain is nearly expended. But with a typical EV drivetrain, there is very little to wear. Telsa drive axles have been tested to over 500k miles with no real issues (aside from routine suspension bushings and shock replacement).

What the market is really missing in the USA is a ~25k small crossover with nominal range and decent fast charging. Based on surveys that thing would sell like hotcakes. US legacy MFGs have mostly dropped the ball on that, instead trying to focus on big trucks and SUVs which have higher profit margins. Looks like in other markets the Chinese MFGs are selling quite well with their domestically produced EVs which meet those requirements. Most with LFP batteries. I can't speak to quality or reliability as I haven't seen any of them myself though, so that remains to be seen.

I also was reading an article in IEEE magazine, and it appears a major player in the auto parts and EV motor market has designed an EV motor that is free of rare earth magnets, but has similar performance to permanent magnet synchronous motors (without a big weight penalty). Which will further drop prices for entry level EVs. In fact I predict that by 2030 that EV cars/crossovers will be cheaper than ICE equivalents at the entry level. The writing is on the wall as massive LFP factories are being spun up all over the world.