DIY Electric Ferrari 308 is the Best Car Ever - VIDEO

The car you see here is unique. Based on a 1978 Ferrari 308 GTS, the car has been fitted with three powerful electric motors and a G50 manual transmission.

That’s right, kids. This Ferrari 308 is a plug in, fully electric car with a manual transmission. It’s a fascinating thing, to be sure and I, for one, can’t help but look at pictures of that shifter and imagine myself blasting through the canyon roads of the Appalachians in this thing. Shifting, downshifting, and listening to the wind scream.

Temptation is a Manual Transmission Ferrari EV

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Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to work like that. Jalopnik’s Andrew Collins, who got to drive the car, writes, “Just like any car ever, the lower gears are where you’ll find the most aggressive acceleration and higher gears make it possible to comfortably cruise at speed. Instead of moving your way from first to fourth as you accelerate, you can basically just pick your acceleration rate from a stop and ride whatever gear you like for your entire drive. Second gives you a nice pull off a stoplight and onto a fast canter. Third gives the car a much gentler reaction time. First is borderline scary.”

Still cool.

Plug-in Classic | Electric Ferrari 308 GTS

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This electric Ferrari project was born of tragedy. The ’78 Ferrari 308’s engine bay caught fire a few years ago, effectively destroying the most expensive go-fast bits of the old Italian beauty. It was beyond any means of traditional repair.

That’s when the owner had the genius idea to take the car to EV West. The EV experts there ended up replacing the 32v Ferrari V8 with 330HP worth of HPEVS Custom Electric AC-51 “V-8” motor package, Curtis 1239 controllers and 46 kW-h lithium battery.

If that sounds complicated, it’s because it was.
This one-off Ferrari was a build that went far beyond “complicated”. Far enough, in fact, that the car’s creation spawned a 23 page build thread on the FerrariChat forum. All of which kind of begs the question, though: was it worth it?

Watch the nearly silent-running, all-electric Ferrari do its best Magnum PI impression- along with a few high-torque donuts- in this video, below, then let us know what you think of the car in the comments section at the bottom of the page.

Electric Ferrari 308 + Manual Transmission

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Source | Images: Electric GT, via Jalopnik.

Electric Volkswagen Beetle Has 80+ Mile Range, Classic Looks

If you’ve seen one Chevy Volt or Nissan LEAF, you’ve seen them all. But if you’re driving a perfectly restored VW Beetle with an 85 hp electric motor, you are the personification of cool. The people at Zelectric Motors in San Diego created this jewel with the help of EV West. It’s a very neat and tidy conversion that looks like it came straight from the factory.

Since the electric motor has more than twice the horsepower of the original Volkswagen engine, acceleration is brisk (by VDub standards) and the top speed is somewhat north of 90 mph. Zelectric’s David Benardo says the car has a range of between 80 and 100 miles – more in the city, less on the highway. To put that in perspective, that is equal to or greater than the rated driving range of cars like the Nissan LEAF (84 miles) and the BMW i3 (81 miles).

If you have a donor car handy, Zelectric will be happy to help you convert it to electric power. They say the typical professional conversion runs between $25,000 and $30,000. For that amount of money, you get yourself a car that doesn’t look like everybody else’s EV, and will put a grin on your face while you’re driving it. An EV that’s fun to drive? What a concept!

EV West’s BMW M3 EV On The Dyno - VIDEO

With major automakers now churning out EVs of their own, electric car conversion shops have taken a backseat in the news. Well, most shops at least. EV West has continued to crank out some incredible electric cars, including the Pikes Peak-dominated BMW M3 EV. At the behest of the fellows at Drive, EV West put their electric Bimmer on the dyno, and you won’t believe the results.

Unlike conventional cars, EVs are rated in kilowatts rather than horsepower and torque. But what does the 400 kilowatts translate into on the dyno? Not as much horsepower as you might expect, but a ton of torque; 850 ft-lbs of torque, in fact, and 342 horsepower at just 600 rpm. Host Matt Farrah compares it to a Ford Super Duty pickup with a tune, and he’s not far off.

All that torque has trashed more than a few parts on the EV West Bimmer, losing parts like a clutch and differential to all that torque. Even on the dyno the beefed-up Powerglide transmission may have thrown a gear.

Building EVs doesn’t always have to be about going green; sometimes it is just about all that torque. Even so, host Matt Farrah seems skeptical about the future of electric racing. And that’s his right.

But after seeing a car like the EV West BMW M3 EV in action, I have to wonder how he can have any doubts that the future of racing is electric. Sure, the sound of conventional race cars is awesome, but the potential for performance in EVs hasn’t even been tapped yet. Just wait until the Formula E series hits streets and see what I mean.

Source: Gas2.0