What happens when the current crop of EV's are "classic cars"?
 

I just drew this up as a study for a lithography project. Discuss.

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7164/6...d516d4a8_b.jpg

:eek:

Well, if you look at Ebay motors under Electric Fuel you will find classic EV's going back to 1890 at times, but 1970's, 1980's and 1990's are more common.
So what are the most common issues with the classic EV? (I assume that was the point of this topic?), People already part out EV's, of course it's not common because most of the issues are with needing new batteries or needing their speed controller updated from what was used in 1975, a few that need their battery charger updated too, but for the most part anything built in the last 20 years that has a solid state speed controller just needs a new set of batteries because they used lead acid batteries and after about 5 years those wore out.
There is one Zenn EV on Ebay right now that is for sale for parts because of front end damage and a friend of mine bought an EV shell that had the motor and some other parts pulled from it and is putting it back together with new parts.
So currently classic EV's are still expensive even when they don't work but I think that will change slowly, we've already seen that change to a point where they have dropped in price by nearly half, gone are the days of a 10 year old Toyota Rav4-ev selling for $50,000 with 100,000 miles on it, they now sell for a much more reasonable price of $15,000 to $20,000 and as we get more EV's on the road the more the price of used ones will drop.

Great insights! Will it be possible to restore a 50 year old Leaf with NOS electronics or do you think people will be substituting new parts (and even software)?

But the bigger question is: how many people will actually want to restore these? Surely they hold significance as some of the first purpose built BEV's in mass production, but will they gain a following like the Insight or be relegated to the history books like many ICE family cars?

I think there will be a mix of people keeping their old electric cars stock and people who upgrade them, but the temptation to upgrade is always there, that is what I've done with my Commuti-car, even tho I want to keep it close to stock for car shows, I still upgrade stuff when it clearly improves the function of the vehicle, but only time will tell what kind of improvements can and will be done to a Nissan Leaf, my guess is there will be people modifying the body for lower drag and adding more batteries for longer range, but it's also a station wagon, so how many people are going to invest to much time or money in to it?

But I think there will always be people who want to restore a vehicle no mater what it is.

Hopefully by then everyone will be horrified with something that only gets 100mpge... well, thats my dream at least.

Plastic cars will never be in existence in 50 years.

regards
Mech

If vehicles like the Honda CRX are an example of plastic cars, then starting in 10 to 20 years when the plastic starts to show it's age and brake down, after market body panels will start showing up.

Not too sure about the 'plastic car' theory - my Citicar has an ABS plastic body (called Cycolac back then), and is over 35 years old. The main problem with the body on this particular car is where it was damaged long ago, and someone tried to spray paint the section with incompatible paint... The original finish is otherwise in good shape - Looks like Ryland's is in good shape as well.

...what'll happen? States will sell "HISTORIC EV" vanity plates, for profit.