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Aging Wheels Test Drives the ACP eBox, a Scion xB Stuffed With the Best EV Parts of 2008

Aging Wheels on YouTube has a collection of electric cars in his garage that, had we not found his channel, we may have never known they even occupied the same universe we do. His bread and butter are regular ICE vehicles that have had their drivetrains removed and replaced with battery power.
ACP eBox 17 photos
Photo: Aging Wheels
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If that's the niche section of the motoring spectrum you enjoy the most, then this ACP eBox EV that appears to be an ordinary first-gen Scion xB is your kind of car. A pre-Tesla, fully battery EV-powered conversion of a typical $10,000 or so econobox that's probably the coolest thing ever to be associated even passively with the Scion xB.

Aging Wheels goes to great lengths to explain all the nooks and crannies of this positively ancient EV. Though its age may say otherwise, the eBox was actually years ahead of its time. With a 200-horsepower (150Kw) three-phase, four-pole AC induction motor and manual transmission from the Stock xB with the gearstick lopped off in second gear to mimic direct drive, it just gets weirder and weirder as the longer the video goes.

Zero to 60 (0-97kph) in seven seconds and a top speed between 95 miles per hour (153 kph) with a range of 140–180 miles (230–290 km) was nothing to sneeze at back in 2008, and it's still relatively respectable even today. Couple this with a very early edition of Vehicle to Grid power transfer and Universal Power Supply capability to charge other EVs or household items, and you have something that looks like a jalopy but was actually one of the most sophisticated EVs of the late 2000s.

Safe to say, the bulk of the eBox's $50,000 conversion fee on top of the base price of the Scion xB went into swapping industrial-grade electrical components under the hood of a mid-2000s Toyota people carrier. Check the video below if you want to learn more.

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