An electric A8?
 

fully electric D2 FL for me please

Perhaps unsurprisingly, I have enquired about this with a UK company that does very good conversions on this, but was told they only do "classics" and that the D2 (and my Fiat Coupe..) don't qualify!:-(. And no, I wasn't thinking of doing this to Herman :)

I think they actually meant it'll cost £££, like £100k
For money they'll do anything I'm sure :)

I did give some serious thought to this a while ago - I think Goran mentioned it? Given the weight and of the drivetrain in the D2 I think an electric conversion would be entirely feasible, although range v performance would be an interesting trade-off.

A pair of conventional 150Kw motors could sit back-to-back where the gearbox was, driving each axle through propshafts and differentials, and would weigh about the same as the 5HP24. Scale back to 100Kw maybe to reduce cost and improve range.

If a pair of Tesla motors could be acquired with gearboxes they could be incorporated in to the front and rear subframes for direct drive which would save a bit of weight.

The fuel tank is huge and could house 75-100Kg of batteries . Another 100-150Kg of batteries up front in the engine bay along with the speed controllers and heat exchangers would complete the package.

If you have to ask how much, you can't afford it! :ROFL:

For comparison, my Renault Zoe had a 300kg battery pack (22kWh), and a 80kW motor that gave average supermini performance for 100 miles at best.

Motors aside (200kW should be pretty damn spritely), I suspect an A8E is going to need/want significantly more juice.

Hmm yeah. 540Kg for a 100KWh Tesla battery. The Tesla drive units weigh 150Kg but make 400Kw each apparently so you really only need one if RWD is acceptable. 700Kg for the Tesla powertrain compared to the D2's 500Kg so it would be over 2 tons complete. You could get a lot of batteries in the D2's transmission tunnel with no shafts or exhaust in there. That would help a lot with weight distribution to offset the overall weight.

EVWest have a complete plug n play Tesla drive unit for only $12K +++

Surely its almost getting to the point where you could buy a second hand tesla (possibly with body damage etc)
and use all parts to convert a D2? :D

Most definitely +++ There's a whole community that exists around reverse-engineering and re-using EV drivetrains like Volts and Teslas.

Didn't we recently have a thread about a Tesla-powered A4? If it'll fit in that it'll fit in a D2 :) I think I'll have some spare time in, oh, about 2025!

Stuff should be cheaper and even more readily available by then!