VUB students have converted an old vintage car into a working electric car. The car was presented on Wednesday morning at the VUB campus in Etterbeek. This way, oldtimers can be reused. They would also be up to half cheaper than newly produced electric models.
While the idea was originally no more than a theoretical issue, VUB students and research group MOBI, led by project promoter Stefan Sallinger, have succeeded in retrofitting, or converting, the vintage MGB into an electric car.
"In order not to mortgage stability, a number of parameters must not deviate too much from the original concept of the car," says Sallinger, promoter of the project at MOBI. "For example, there are restrictions on the weight, which must not be too high."
During the retrofit operation, therefore, all the original parts were carefully weighed. The old engine, some 210 kilograms, and the petrol tank, were replaced with 175 kilograms of new battery cells, as well as an electric motor weighing around 60 kilograms.
Read the full article here. (NL)
