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Aston Martin Will Make Old Cars Electric So They Don't Get Banned From Cities (theverge.com)
Aston Martin announced this week that it's starting a "Heritage EV" program where owners of classic Aston Martins can have their cars converted to an all-electric powertrain. The British automaker said they are starting this program so that classic cars don't get banned from cities that are moving to shun internal combustion engines in favor of boosting air quality for residents. The Verge reports: Aston Martin says the technology for these conversions will be built on "key components" being used to develop the Rapide E, a super-limited all-electric sports car due late next year. The Rapide E will use an 800-volt, 65kWh battery, offer "over 200 miles" of range, and feature a sub-4-second 0-60 mph time, as well as a top speed of 155 miles per hour. Only 155 of them will be sold, too. So the best way to get a taste of Aston Martin's electric future might actually be one of these EV conversions.
The automaker says the first car it will develop a conversion plan for is the 1970 DB6 MkII Volante. Aston Martin will build Rapide E-inspired "cassettes" that can essentially slide in where the original engine and gearbox used to be, and will even be attached to the same mountings. A new screen will be fitted in the car's interior, but otherwise, little else is changed. This also means that, should an owner change their mind, and also have the money (which, come on, of course they do), they should be able to change it back if they so desire.
The automaker says the first car it will develop a conversion plan for is the 1970 DB6 MkII Volante. Aston Martin will build Rapide E-inspired "cassettes" that can essentially slide in where the original engine and gearbox used to be, and will even be attached to the same mountings. A new screen will be fitted in the car's interior, but otherwise, little else is changed. This also means that, should an owner change their mind, and also have the money (which, come on, of course they do), they should be able to change it back if they so desire.
What kind of car Iâ(TM)m gonna write about next!! Thanks slashdot!
Even here in Germany, classic cars are exempt from most air qualityrules (and even regular car taxes) so I doubt that would be a problem anywhere else.
But then, this is pretty cool and catapults classic cars into the 21st century.
And best of it is: A company is showing dedication to their own products and is not trying to obsolete their old products as fast as possible to sell a few more new ones. That's the long term support i want to see from phone manufacturers.
bickerdyke
Of course, the conversions will be expensive, and only done on a limited scale, but it is still a good proof of concept.
It will also have an interesting side-effect of making those old classic cars WAY faster. I would expect that they are planning to upgrade the braking systems on the converted cars.
The big problem that I have with EVs is that they're all new. In other words, they all have "navigation systems." In other words, they all spy on you.
This lets me have an EV and lets me grandfather in my privacy at the same time.
James Bonds DB5 with the machine guns and ejector seat
I hope this sends a message to all manufacturers - considerate product design with a long term plan for upgrades should, in some cases, extend the life of items and start to move us away from the 'throwaway society' we have largely become.
great way to ruin your investment by making the car near worthless.
it will only be worth its money if it is in its original state.
nobody is driving these classic cars anyway, except maybe once or twice a year to go to a meeting or somesuch. even then, it might be they're just transported with a trailer. and these meetings typically don't take place in a city (not enough space to display so many cars anyway). so no cause for banning-fear.
On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.
My '04 XJR is about as perfect a road car as I can find. Physically, I fit, unlike a Tesla Model S, and it is quite roomy; the large "greenhouse" gives me great visibility; it has sufficient power; it handles beautifully. Currently, because I drive long distances on obscure roads, an electric is not useful to me as an "only" car. However, as an alternative for city use, an electric version would be magnificent. Jaguar has a decent history of electrics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaguar_C-X75, as well as a current "Sport Utility" model https://www.jaguarusa.com/all-models/i-pace/index.html. A retrofit kit for a same model XJ would make much more sense to me than anything likely to come out in the foreseeable future.
The automaker says the first car it will develop a conversion plan for is the 1970 DB6 MkII Volante. Aston Martin will build Rapide E-inspired “cassettes” that can essentially slide in where the original engine and gearbox used to be, and will even be attached to the same mountings. A new screen will be fitted in the car’s interior, but otherwise, little else is changed. This also means that, should an owner change their mind, and also have the money (which, come on, of course they do), they should be able to change it back if they so desire.
“Given the historical significance of these collectors cars it’s vital any EV conversion is sympathetic to the integrity of the original car,” the company wrote in a press release this week. “The cassette system offers the perfect solution, offering owners the reassurance of knowing their car is future-proofed and socially responsible, yet still an authentic Aston Martin with the ability to reinstate its original powertrain if desired.”
The day my car is banned is the day the city buys my car.
His will mean that Mr Posh will not able to driver his Aston from London to the welsh mountains have a blat around for a few hours then tea somewhere nice whilst listerning to his car cool down, his and return home all in the same day
Anyone who does this isn't really a fan of the car itself, they like the idea of the prestige of being seen driving the car. A fan of the car itself would want it to drive as much as possible like it did the first day out of the factory.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
My concern, would be where is the battery going to go? How is the weight going to be handled?
Batteries are a LOT heavier then a combustion engine.
How is that extra weight going to be handled?
Will you need to beef up the suspension?
What about front to rear distribution?
This "conversion" could totally destroy the handling
I mean the point is to not use up resources until we don't have any, and to not throw shit into nature until we're living in our own shit.
So since gasoline can be and is already made from the waste products of a clean burn, all we need to balance out are the non-clean parts. I guess if you own a classic car, you could pay a bit to somebody, for scrubbing some crap form the air and streets.
Then we would not have to use the utter crap that we call batteries, with their super-low energy density and poisonous blood metals.
Frankly, I'd like to see that in modern cars too. But with fuel cells, to guarantee clean burns.
Maybe even something to collect the CO2 in non-gaseous form for density reasons, so that every time you fuel up, you just empty the CO2 tank in the process.
Sure, turning that back into gasoline is not efficient. But we don't need it to be, as we have WAY more sunlight than we need, and we can make it way in advance too, due to only needing small tanks, and not huge batteries, to store it.
Can we not have that, and forego this current unthinking obsession with battery-powered things.
cities that are moving to shun internal combustion engines
My first thought was of this lyric: "You know, I shun fancy things like electricity" - Amish Paradise.
The Rapide E will use an 800-volt, 65kWh battery, offer "over 200 miles" of range,
This is huge, they're already doubling the range of most British cars before they break down!
Hopefully with the coming of self driving automobiles we will move towards only ordering cars from fleets when we need them and car ownership will become a thing only dorks do
modern cars are basically fully electronic, it seems like it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to pull the IC/tran and replace it with an electric drive train. It seems like there is a business model in there somewhere.
... weren't all to far off.
I had that suspicion. That in some hyper-clean futuristic world neo-hippster-compliant retro chique would be en-vogue again. Mark my words: Once elctric cars automated become commonplace, you'll be able to order them build in some retro style for those who have extra cash and want to distinguish themselves from the unwashed masses.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Oh, don't worry. Your car isn't "banned" from the city.
It just isn't allowed to use the city's air as a waste dump for polluted air any more, that's all. As long as it doesn't use air, you're fine.
The cities would rather have nice metropolitan cores that people want to come to, and not city centers that are basically slow-moving parking lots spewing out junk into the air.
Let's face it: Aston-Martins are not cars that people buy to use for their work commute. They are expensive and relatively small numbers of them are made. And as they age, they tend to become even more valuable. The idea of taking a valuable 1970 Aston Martin Volante and stripping out the engine and drive train to install electric motors and batteries does not seem like a good one to me. These cars will immediately lose all of their collector value and the owners' investment in them will tank. Knowing the company, it probably will not be cheap to make the conversion, either.
With the original ICE this car did 0-60 in 8.4 seconds. I have to wonder how the stock frame and suspension are going to handle that much extra torque. Additionally, this car did not have any sort of traction control. Will that be added as part of the conversation? I didn't RTFA, so I also have to wonder if the brakes are to be improved. I'm assuming it will have regenerative brakes. Then there's the matter that less than 2000 of these were built to begin with.
I spent a lot of my youth looking to go faster. But I also tried to only modify cars that weren't rare or classics. By the time the 1980s rolled around 1970 to 1974 were my favorite years for cars. They tended to be ignored/despised, but were pre emissions for the most part. Had too many friends that had cars that sat in climate controlled garages at that point and never understood the point. There will be a lot of those type of people who will be awfully pissed off about someone doing this to a fairly rare, well loved car like this Aston Martin
I don't buy old cars for the original car, I buy it for the platform it offers me.
Take Mad Max. How modified was his V8 interceptor by the time it got destroyed? How about Akio in Wangan Midnight?
Literally the only people who buy cars for the original car are trailer queenies treating them as financial investments, and those are often the cars that turn out most subpar (I imagine there are a few collectors who refute this, but even Jay Leno has plenty of modified vehicles he rides around in probably more than his restored vintage classics, most of which are restored to the state of a past owner and not the truly factory original condition anyways.)
Personally, I have no problem with EV conversions for one very simple reason: Pragmatism. Any car prior to the 2000s, short of a 200k+ exotic or a purpose built racecar, can be retrofitted with a lower maintenance, lower pollution, higher performance electric drivetrain. Furthermore emission standards are only getting stricter and many countries are restricting 'dirtier' cars, meaning if you want to continue owning and daily driving those cars in those city centers you will need the car to meet the new emissions standards. Furthermore, in my belief, if you really need the range of a gas car, building a 30+kW electric generator that runs off fuel to extend your range will not be difficult, so once complacency sets in in the enforcement of emission laws, you can have the higher performance of the electric drivetrain for the short intervals you need maximum performance, and a generator capable of maintaining charge while you travel at cruising speeds.
Personally, given all the new cameras, automated license place tracking and DEA 'spy-sign cams', I'm of the belief that unless you like felony driving charges having a higher performance vehicle has been rendered impotent by the march of technology. The freedom it once offered is at a close and only oppression results as travel in one is now even easier to record than a random person on the street, the latter of which itself is going to fall to 5G and intersection cameras providing the locational accuracy and gait tracking necessary to uniquely identify every Chinese, then American, and finally global citizen until the technology oppression of all but the highest classes is complete.
Watch and see, or being gathering compatriots for your struggle and home your technology and personal opsec doesn't out you.
Sad news that the heart of a vintage sports car is being ripped out to satisfy the supposed EV requirements. No self-respecting gearhead/petrolhead is awed by EVs; sure certain hybrids(Porsche 918, Ferrari La Ferrari). Destroying works of art to appears the EV requirements is a crime.
While an Aston Martin is out of my price range regardless, one of the key elements of a sports car is the availability of a manual transmission. I don't see any mention of how the transmission would work after this conversion. By my understanding most all-electric cars on the road today use either single speed transmissions or CVTs; neither are particularly sporting for someone who really wants to have fun driving. I hope they have something figured out for that.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
I will NEVER hack my classic car in this manner!
Tantamount to saying, "Oh look the Sistine Chapel isn't beautiful enough, let me paint half of it! I can make it better"
Yeah, that would do it.
Not.
This goes part and parcel with tearing down crosses on hillsides that have been there for decades, statues that have been around forever, and the destruction of historical sites by ISIS.
Some people are just assholes from the word go.
Caution: Contents under pressure
I'll be driving whatever I want as long as I want.
Britons are not free.
Why is Aston Martin announcing their car offerings in terms of MPH and "200 miles of range?" If they are a UK company shouldn't that all be in metric units?
Aston Martin is far from being a mass-production autobile manufacturer, in fact they're the antithesis of that, and while I applaud the thought and effort that must be going into this, there's at least one problem with it. A 'classic' Aston Martin, 'upgraded' or 'converted' to plug-in electric, will for all intents and purposes have it's value as a 'classic' car destroyed by this, even if it's done at the Aston Martin factory with Aston Martin components, because it won't be a 'classic' Aston Martin at that point; only with the original powertrain can it still be considered as such, so on that point I find this offer from Aston Martin to be surprising. Classic Aston Martin owners would essentially see the value in their classic car destroyed.
Only do this if you want to wipe out the value of your classic Aston
"When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns
Unlike GM
they will pry my carburetted non-catalytic V8 mustang from my cold dead hands... fuck the fuel economy and nuke the whales