Converting an electric vehicle to use an internal combustion engine is a very difficult (or often even impossible) endeavor - plus, there are so many ICE cars out there already, so what would the point be.
The other way around, though, is a completely different story. With the electric motor usually sitting on the axle itself, you only need to find room for the battery, and you're game. That is if you plan on building an EV sleeper, one that does its best to hide the nature of its drivetrain.
There is none of that in this 1980s Honda Accord which has been gifted a Tesla drive unit. The guys behind the conversion paid as little attention to aesthetics as they could, and the funny part is that in doing so, they've come up with a pretty sick-looking machine.
The Teslonda, as this Frankensteinian device is called, is the brainchild of YouTube user "Jimmy Built" and should be seen more at various drag racing events in the future. It only managed to hit 2.7 seconds for the 0-60 mph acceleration run you see here, but Jimmy reckons 2.5 isn't out of reach considering everything was cold (asphalt, tires, battery).
The two things that stand out immediately are the ultra-wide rear axle - no simple way of making it any narrower than on the original Tesla - and the jacked-up front suspension. We're not entirely sure why the latter was necessary, but we wouldn't be surprised if some weight was added in the future to keep the front wheels from losing grip, which should push the nose into the ground.
While the Tesla drivetrain makes the most sense when building a drag racer, Jimmy went for a Chevrolet Volt battery pack for the energy storage solution. It definitely provides less power overall resulting in a shorter maximum range (or fewer runs), but the Volt pack has another redeeming feature. It's capable of discharging the energy at much higher rates than the Tesla, making it ideal for quick accelerations.
Hopefully, we'll see more of the Teslonda in the future as the project unfolds because there's something really appealing about these relatively cheap builds (the car must have cost peanuts, while the Tesla drive unit is a salvaged piece bought from HSR Motors, a company started by renowned Tesla hacker and conversion-builder himself Jason Hughes) that can go really fast. It makes you look with very different eyes at that old piece of junk sitting at the back of your garage.
"Boy meets car, boy loves car, boy gets journalism degree and starts job writing and editing at a car magazine" - 5/5. (Vlad Mitrache if he was a movie) Full profile
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