Photo: Vincent Yu / Richmond News
How much would you sacrifice for a dream? One Canadian engineer gave up four years of his life, his house, and his marriage just because he wanted to stop being a polluting “douchebag” and drive an electric vehicle.
It wasn’t just any electric vehicle, though. Vincent Yu, an engineer and businessman from Richmond, Canada, drove a 2015 Rolls-Royce Ghost when his daughter made the “douchebag” remark to him a while back. Yu tells Richmond News that she scolded him for driving a “stinking” ICE (internal combustion engine) car and polluting the air, which is how the idea came to him that he should convert it.
It was no easy task, though. He assembled a team of mechanics and machinists and started working on the Rolls in his own garage. After four very long and, we assume, troublesome years, it was done. The Rolls rolls now with a Tesla drive unit and a battery pack that takes up most of the frunk and trunk but delivers a 500-km (311-mile) range on a single charge. Along the way, Yu sold the family home to get cash to fund the project, and his wife divorced him because of it (duh!).
One might think buying a Tesla, or any other EV would have been a much more convenient and stress-free option, but that would have meant Yu admitting defeat. And he’s always been the kind of guy who does things his way, he tells the publication. In the end, Yu and the team who helped with the conversion started a business for electromods, monetizing what they learned over these four years.
Asked whether he has any regrets about the conversion, Yu answers in the negative. Even if he lost a house and a wife, and despite the fact that he spent as much time in the garage as he did on the road in the U.S., Japan, and Germany to secure parts for the conversion, he would probably change little about his adventure. “I am happy as long as my story could make one person on earth laugh while starting to think about climate change,” he says.
It was no easy task, though. He assembled a team of mechanics and machinists and started working on the Rolls in his own garage. After four very long and, we assume, troublesome years, it was done. The Rolls rolls now with a Tesla drive unit and a battery pack that takes up most of the frunk and trunk but delivers a 500-km (311-mile) range on a single charge. Along the way, Yu sold the family home to get cash to fund the project, and his wife divorced him because of it (duh!).
One might think buying a Tesla, or any other EV would have been a much more convenient and stress-free option, but that would have meant Yu admitting defeat. And he’s always been the kind of guy who does things his way, he tells the publication. In the end, Yu and the team who helped with the conversion started a business for electromods, monetizing what they learned over these four years.
Asked whether he has any regrets about the conversion, Yu answers in the negative. Even if he lost a house and a wife, and despite the fact that he spent as much time in the garage as he did on the road in the U.S., Japan, and Germany to secure parts for the conversion, he would probably change little about his adventure. “I am happy as long as my story could make one person on earth laugh while starting to think about climate change,” he says.
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