Are There Any Electric Crate Motors Available for Easy EV Conversions?

Companies have speculated this need and are now offering full conversion kits. Some of these kits are tailor-made to fit certain models, but there are those that could theoretically be adapted to power any kind of car.

Trying to source the parts yourself, you run the risk of paying as much as you would for a brand new EV. Your best bet is to find a specialized shop that is really good at EV conversions, and ask them to do it. The final cost will still be quite substantial, but at least you know it was carried out by professionals who have done it before.

But if all you want to do is order a plug-and-play powertrain online, have it delivered to your door and then start installing it yourself, as difficult as it may be, there are ways for you to do that too.

One company that may soon offer such a solution is General Motors. You may have seen the modified 1962 Chevy C10 pickup revealed at SEMA this year (it was called the E10) which featured an all-electric powertrain in place of the traditional V8. GM didn’t just show it as an entire finished project, but also as a means to show off its new eCrate motor.

The E10 relies on two eCrate motors for motivation, drawing juice from two batteries mounted in the closed bed. Both the motors themselves and the batteries are essentially the same units GM offers in the Bolt EV, but now they are also available without the car.

Together, they make 450 horsepower and push the pickup to sixty in around 5 seconds. An interesting point is that the two engines send their power to the rear wheels through a Supermatic 4L75-E four-speed automatic transmission. What this essentially means is that you could mount any kind of GM transmission to these electric motors, granting future builders the option to even slot a stick shift in there, if they so choose.

GM has not announced when it will offer this solution to customers “maybe in a year or two,” but it had better get a move on because a much smaller company has already beaten them to market. Electric GT, the company behind that all-electric 1978 Ferrari 308, has already launched a full plug-and-play kit designed to fit a wide variety of vehicles.

What it has done is create a housing that can take one or two electric motors and made it look kind of like a V8. Power can range from 140 to 240 horsepower and torque ranges between 325 and 460 Nm (240 and 340 pound-feet). Not an obscene amount of either, but it should be good for the less extreme projects out there.

Just like the GM project, this one also mates to standard automatic or manual transmissions without any additional modifications. According to Electric GT, this electric crate motor will work with a very wide variety of vehicles, including off-road vehicles where its instant low-down torque will lend itself well to rock crawling.

Electric GT also has a price for its crate motor solution and, as you might imagine, it’s not cheap. Considering the fact that no battery pack is included, the $60,000 starting price is a bit steep and it does not include installation (although the first 10 such powertrains sold will come with free installation).

As more of these solutions are made available, though, the cost will go down and it will become the hot new thing to put under the hood of your freshly restored classic. This is a trickle that will soon become a storm.