EPIC_ 450hp Tesla Powered 'Spectre' Defender - Driven up a Mountain !

**An Electric Transformation: The Birth of a Tesla-Powered Land Rover Defender**

**Introduction**

In a world where classic cars are being reimagined with modern technology, one such project has captured the attention of car enthusiasts and environmentalists alike. This article delves into the journey of transforming a 1980s Land Rover Defender into an electric powerhouse, powered by Tesla components. The hosts, known for their expertise in classic car conversions, discuss the challenges, triumphs, and future prospects of this groundbreaking project.

**The Vehicle: A Vintage Replica**

The vehicle in question is a rare replica of the iconic Bond Spectre Land Rover, without the snorkel or city rope, which gives it away as a custom build. The hosts highlight its vintage appeal, noting that it's not your typical Defender. This serves as the perfect canvas for their electric conversion project.

**Technical Marvel: The Conversion Process**

The heart of this transformation lies in replacing the vehicle's internal combustion engine with a Tesla drive unit. The motor, typically found in Tesla Model S or X, has been ingeniously repurposed. Positioned at 90 degrees within the Defender, it now powers both front and rear axles via a limited-slip differential setup. This modification ensures optimal torque distribution, enhancing off-road capabilities.

The battery pack, a substantial 100 kilowatt-hour unit, is strategically placed to maintain the vehicle's balance. Cooling systems for both the motor and battery are in place, though less intensive than those of combustion engines. The trio of differentials provides exceptional grip, making high-low gear settings unnecessary due to the instant torque delivery.

**A Beast on Off-Road Terrain**

The converted Defender is tested in the rugged Welsh hills, showcasing its prowess. The hosts demonstrate how it effortlessly navigates steep inclines and loose gravel with minimal wheel spin, a testament to the electric motor's torque and advanced differentials. The vehicle's ability to regenerate power during descents further highlights its efficiency.

**Interior Elegance: A Balance of Vintage and Luxury**

Inside, the Defender has been stripped down to its essential components, reflecting the hosts' philosophy of simplicity. Heated seats and wood slats on the floors offer a touch of luxury without compromising the vehicle's authentic appeal. The absence of traditional controls like gear sticks or clutches creates more legroom, enhancing the driving experience.

**Charging and Cost Considerations**

The financial aspect of such a conversion is significant. The hosts reveal that costs range from £75,000 to £90,000, depending on specifications. However, economies of scale are emerging as they increase production volumes, making these conversions more accessible. A 21 kilowatt charging system and the possibility of rapid DC charging in future models are also discussed.

**Environmental Impact: A Sustainable Choice**

The project's environmental benefits are profound. The vehicle emits zero emissions and is powered by renewable energy from nearby wind turbines. This alignment with sustainable practices underscores the hosts' commitment to eco-friendly motoring.

**Conclusion: A New Era for Classic Cars**

As they descend from their off-road adventure, the hosts reflect on the potential of electric conversions for classic vehicles. The future holds exciting possibilities, including a 600 horsepower lightweight Defender and other projects that blend power with sustainability.

This article captures the essence of innovation and sustainability in the automotive world, proving that classic cars can be reborn as modern, eco-friendly machines. Whether you're a car enthusiast or an environmentalist, this story of transformation offers inspiration for the future.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhey guys and welcome to petroped and welcome to mid wales and a very very special car get away from my car i'm a very special mate guys back on the channel now that ain't a normal defender in the background is it my friend it's a beast it's a beast ready to be unleashed on the hills of wales that thing is tesla powered monster ryan roller titles mate what a thing it's beast in it it's a flop a beast so tell us about the car and then tell us what you've done to it right so the vehicle itself obviously land rover double cab um it's kind of a replica of the bond spectre yeah rover that's what they svx did those didn't they that's right uh without the city big rope on the front which i thought is yeah i can't put that on no there's no snorkel either there is no snorkel yeah yeah this kind kind of gives the game away as to what we've done yeah exactly so what have you done right in your electric classic cars madness obviously you've gone very sensible with this one you know me yes no that's never been sensible in your life uh what have we done so we've taken all the dirty smelly stuff out and we've replaced it with power which means a tesla drive unit so we put it tesla drive unit in the in the middle so we're taking it usually drives the rear wheels and we've kind of turned it 90 degrees changed the gear set in uh put a limited slip diff in and then that drives the front and rear prop yeah and that means that if we just simply did that and floored it everything else would break then we've got to upgrade everything land rover on it so the axles are heavy-duty uh axles in it the cv joints everything land roverish now has been upgraded including a limited slip diff in the front and rear axles as well so it's actually you've got three diffs or three limiters like this correct yeah so off-road wise it's fantastic in fact it's probably better off road now as it was before yeah there's no high low diff sorry high low gears in it because essentially you don't need that it's got maximum torque from 0 rpm so you don't really need high and low for that it doesn't really need the lock diff in it because it's got the three lsds and if you do lift one wheel off the ground you just kind of put your foot a little bit on the uh brake to drag it a little bit and it kind of like helps all the others just engage so it's a beast off road now which is why i brought you up here for a bit of play time it's perfect doesn't it and then uh battery pack wise battery pack wise let me show you it's probably easiest so we've got a full tesla battery pack in it as well so we've got the tesla motor in and a full tesla battery pack so we've got 10 in here and six in the back so a typical tesla model s or model x has 16 tesla modules in and we've put 10 in the front six in the back and it's all in here with a sealed battery box in you've got things like a vent here you're probably wondering why is there a radiator on it yes well this this is actually a dual radiator so this radiator here is cooling the motor and inverter yeah and this smaller radiator here is cooling the battery pack so uh yeah you still need to cool these things down just nowhere near as n as much as a diesel or a petrol car yeah um so we've got 20 21 kilowatt charging system on it as well so three phase ac charging on it no ccs on this one but we've got another land rover in the workshop it's got ccs on for rapid dc charging uh so yeah it's a 100 kilowatt hour pack wow so it's a decent sized pack but you've got to do that because it's coupled to a car which has the aerodynamics of a garden shed mate it's not going to be the most aero is it really no unpleasant you've got it's not just an aerodynamics of a garden shed you've got things like this and this on yeah act like a parachute so think of it as a garden shed with parachutes on going down the road that's what the aerodynamics is like and then you've got again with a rolling resistance of those bad boys no so it needs a big battery pack to be able to cope with the fact it's a big heavy vehicle aerodynamics are awful rolling resistance is even worse um but to be fair the torque of the motor you hardly even notice it's got these big wheels and tires on yeah because usually with a diesel or petrol um uh land rover if you put big massive wheels and tires on it you feel it it's a bit sluggish and it doesn't quite go as fast overtaking overtaken's a bit of a chore but this because of the amount of talking it it's just i hardly notice it you just floor it and it still is ridiculously overpowered so you brought me up to this rather spectacular location with my garden we're surrounded yeah your back garden surrounded by um off-road capabilities just pick pick a direction and we'll go that way we'll go that way yeah let's go it's a proper case to lift yourself up so this thing's just so cool mate seriously it's been done beautifully inside though yeah it's nice and that it didn't come to us like this obviously i mean we've done a full-on interior our lovely trimmers have done a fantastic job there yeah so the seats are heated seats as well so a bit of luxury in the defender how's this look now the uh torch yeah that just just pulls out it charges up when it's in the hole so it's brilliant so i like that excellent we've got uh for me the luxury for uh for me in these is the fact that there's more space for the driver which sounds really weird in defender yeah but because there's no clutch pedal yeah and there's no gear like sticks or four wheel drive and lock and there's normally two gear sticks there a handbrake here and without the clutch pedal i've just got more space there's a driver which you still have to put your arm out the window to be able to like drive the properly with the steering wheel it just feels more spacious in here because it's electric now then we probably have to address the elephant in the room in here yeah well you probably could get an elephant in us no masks oh yeah we've had our coat and that is the reason we had a cover test because we were filming together yesterday and we had to pass a cobra test before we could do that indeed so we are covered free i'm not pregnant and you're not pregnant yeah it might be by the end of this one right we're going to that place are we yeah yeah right let's go right come on then so i guess it's just a case of uh stick it in drive and you have to turn it on crank it to start it and then you've got your little rnd for reverse neutron drive yeah and i'll resist it take your bucket it's electric parking brake so epb is recording is that the one off for tesla um or did you change the what's the first one you did yeah we tried the tesla parking brake but it didn't hold a vehicle of this size and weight yeah um because the discs on a tesla are like yay big this on the land rover a little bit smaller so it didn't have that like grip so we changed to will wood in the end and they hold it lovely yeah because it is a bit of a wakey beast yeah because the brakes on these um take me take me away what the brakes on these um it's normally does it break during in the gearbox or the diff or something yeah so the handbrake on a now a normal land rover is actually on the transfer case yeah so it's a there's like a drum brake on the uh transfer case obviously we've lost the transfer case and yeah replacing it yeah it's gone so the first thing is that you can feel the knobbles on those massive tyres even though yeah yeah it doesn't happen it doesn't help the fact that we're actually on gravel and stuff now but yeah you definitely feel the nozzles at lower speeds yeah yeah and on tarmac and in the workshop yeah you feel like you're going over something so the the the large tesla is what 450 odd horsepower but i guess for this it's all about the torque all about the torque yeah and you've got lots of low down torque i mean you know as i said this is quite a a weighty beast of a vehicle yeah and uh you know i'm hardly touching this role which is why you don't need that high low diff i mean we've got good regen as well for hill descent mode as well so you don't necessarily when you're uh when you're off-roading want to be using the brake too much going downhill you can help it so you want to use engine braking on this case regen with a motor so it's got quite a high regen in for that respect but uh yeah it's just yeah yeah yeah and it's just a stunning place here we're not even at the top yet right you can have a go and once we get up the top oh music tomorrow a bit of a rag around so you've done uh obviously we did one of these in series one vintage voltage yes um and you've done quite a few now i think we've done five now yeah i think uh we've got an order for i think it's another five i don't know it's more than that um about another 15 on ordinary wow now the the question i get most asked whenever i do something with you is about how much these conversions cost see it's a battery pack and motor that's a big chunk yeah it's a bit it's not cheap to do a conversion on something like this because you've got to use the biggest battery pack yeah and the biggest smoker you have to upgrade all the land river stuff to be able to cope with that power as well so yeah you're talking about 75 to 90 grand depending on spec yeah you convert something like this so unfortunately it's not cheap by any stretch you have to get out do the gates you've got to do gates man game it's not a country boy i wonder if he knows how to use a gate well done good gate work there yeah right man i tell you what you do have to hold yourself in there i'll sing in you're not a country boy so i was thinking the gates you might be in it you know the plane now approaching gate five not quite this kind of country the south downs are quite good so yeah so they're not cheap things and even the smaller conversions they're quite a lot of money and i think yeah the amount of work you guys have to do to do it is immense yes i mean the prices are starting to come down as we're starting to do more volumes yeah so we're starting to do land rover defenders in batches of two three fours etc yeah and that brings the cost down um the repeatability of the design means we can you know more quickly knock up some battery boxes with the plasma table and stuff so yeah the prices are coming down in that respect yeah um but our conversions start from anything from say you know 15 to 20 grand for a little city car like the 500 yeah 75 mile range which is plenty in the city um right the way up to basically the defenders and the range rovers which is probably the high end which uh you know they need massive battery packs so you need lots of power yeah all the other pieces upgraded to be able to cope with that so that's probably the opposite end of the spectrum so you mentioned it in the intro but let's just kind of everyone help them understand exactly how you've done the conversion because the tesla motor that's in fact it's pretty much underneath us yes in a tesla model x or more less that would be between the rear axles sideways correct and you've twisted you've turned that 90 degrees and dropped it in the middle of the car yep with and i'll put some b-roll over while we're talking with with the driveshafts coming out to the front and rear axle but you have to make the motor spin the other way yes that's right that's all about that yep you're right so we need to see i remember these things somebody's paying attention yeah it's not me so it's actually running in reverse yes but a motor doesn't actually care which way it's spinning but the oil pump that's inside the drive unit does yes obviously then it will be blowing all into the sump rather than the other way around so we've had to put a um a little solution in to reverse the oil pump to be able to work in the opposite direction yeah but apart from that that's the only thing we needed to do to get it to run in reverse really um say a motor doesn't care if it's spinning this way or that way so and then we had to change the gear set because if you didn't change the gear set it would literally be probably maxing out at 55 miles an hour it will get up to 55 miles an hour very quickly yeah yeah oh look at that this is like something out of top gear look at that yeah this is on the tops now that's quite the tops we'll go up to the tops to win wind turbines later on but uh what else it mate that's epic that's that's in regen now so i mean i've not touched the brake at all yeah so uh so that's like hill descent control it is charging the batteries yeah but it's it's actually better than normal um hill descent mode impacts on diesel cars because essentially it's it's so smoothly you know applying braking to all four wheels yeah because it's an electric motor if we can get onto that ridge i don't know mate i'm sure a lot of you i'm sure a man of your caliber can find out let's find out this is this is proper off-roading let's look at that human see where we're going over ridge wow good we're good we're good all good let's just go this way there's no there's no tracks this way they always say the adventure starts when the road ends yeah there's no road definitely man look at that there's quite a drop down there yeah we won't go that way that's not a good idea but uh i think we try to go up there that might be fun we've got a music winch on the front what's the worst that could happen eh get stuck we've got a land anchor with you what a land anchor a land anchor yeah we've got a big winch i don't know how that would help but it's um i might see if we can get up there it gives you i think it gives you over confidence yeah having success lord stop it you're kidding me should we give it a go yeah okay i i think just for safety purposes we should get out and have a look that is just insane all right you're safe mate you reckon yeah i'm never safe in the car it's just why at least we've checked yeah all right ready yeah do it again that's wicked so we try it this way yeah do this way all right let's give it a go i was going to say let's do a run up and do a jump off i think there's a when i was younger i might have done some insecurities but i'm i'm old and sensible now bro i mean if you're driving towards that you think there's no way a vehicle is going to drive up that that's not this time but uh let's see i'll keep the same speed yeah oh my god it's not even blinked at it is it that was easy you're kidding me too easy that's about 45 degrees that was nuts mate you have made an off-roading monster i'm telling you bring on the zombie apocalypse so i'll tell you what all right anybody says ooh you the electric phone cars you're destroying the original drive one of these uh i think you should have go yeah come on so when you said oh do you wanna have a drive i thought he might be on some tarmac not on the nah oh you've done that enough times in your life mate yeah give me some proper welsh experience i'm trying qualified i can't believe he's letting me have a go at this right right i feel like a driving instructor okay so put it in d for drive yeah parking brake is off and just slowly introduce the throttle oh there we go and just walk it over just head straight most surreal thing ever it is a strange feeling to know that you can just basically just drive over stuff like that that is i can't see a thing i don't i know there's a big drop in that's phenomenal if you floored it it would just fly off that thing i'm warning you now don't do that i forgot to say it but it will just fly up there so while we're driving back and having another go because on time like this this car will do not to 60 probably about five seconds which isn't bad for like two point five tonne of here now where are we gonna be heading up i reckon you should go over it right oh come on then go over the uh the wall of rock that one right there yeah i'm gonna get out i'm gonna fill it up so here we go slow and gentle lots and lots of talk oh my goodness me that is oh my god that's amazing that is utterly amazing let's go there okay let's go up there that's called the widowmaker that's um yeah let's go that way we'll head towards the wind turbines because there'll be some nice uh iconic sort of footage for you up there wow doesn't it make off-roading i mean you've you've driven and apparently have qualifications i have qualifications yeah you've mentioned it once or twice yeah um this is just exceptional um but isn't this easier than like a petrol and like a diesel it's the application of the torque you don't have to worry about clutch control you just i mean i've hardly got any throttle on there at all um and i i think there's an argument actually to say i reckon these would be more um sensitive to off-road than a petrol car because you're going to have less wheel spin you're just going to be applying the power so smoothly that this is ridiculous i'm not even trying yeah you just apply the throttle as to what speed you want to maintain and there's no you can't stall it i mean it's just simple an idiot could uh go off-roading good couldn't they yes they came back you just prove that i've proved that many times right like this wicked yeah i i was never into land rovers ever i've always been a vw and porsche guy and my old vw porsches and andrew was uh i'm liv i live here basically well it is land rover it's where people come to pretend they can off road yeah but we live here yeah so having grown up with land rovers i just thought of them as nothing more than a glorified tractor it's a farm implementer but now since i built an electric one i love it i've got one myself as you know it's in the workshop your one's gonna be proper yeah so tell us about that because i use that for a bit of b-roll but that's beautiful so my take on the land rover is it needs to be nice and simple like the old land rovers when i was in school and went to my mates advanced they were very simple things yeah and i wanted to strip it down to essentially their simple enjoyment of a land rover so it's all stripped out no carpets it's actually just got wood slats on the floor um so it can easily be just brushed out with a mud uh no sound deadening uh no door panels at all it's just stripped down um a 90 which is the shorter one yeah two door um no roof on it even but this is your car mate so it's going to be a bit bonkers i mean it's probably not going to push uh the truth to say it will be the quickest land rover in the world yes it it just simply will be and because you're doing it it's going to have a 600 horsepower tesla drive unit 600 it's light i've i've taken the opportunity i can't even be am i saying the word lightweight and land rover in the same sentence i know uh you know there are such things as lightweight land rovers but yeah i have got on things like plastic wings because they they have uh plastic wings you can get now and some other opportunities to lose weight here and there yeah but yeah it's gonna be ridiculously quick it's a beautiful thing uh i may put a roll bar or roll gauge on it as well yeah just because you know i'm very sensible yeah yes i would probably think about doing that um look at this how cool is this one yeah so this is one when this is built this is actually the largest wind turbine a wind farm if you like in the country i think there's something close to a hundred wind turbines up here like that is ridiculous you like that that's amazing good toy now it is very very windy up here but that's a good reason to have a wind farm that's right and that actually is powered by dual engine my uh electricity supplier is a renewable energy supplier like this it has actually powered it so there you go it's about as green off-road as you can get there you go powered by renewables it's got no emissions it's and it's a wet and it'll go anywhere um guys i hope you enjoyed that one i'll put moggy's details and electric classic cars details below keep an eye out for us vintage voltage uh but yeah amazing vehicle have you enjoyed it always love spending time with you mate um we're gonna enjoy ourselves driving back down again yeah let's have some more fun anyway guys i hope you enjoyed that if you have done so give me a thumbs up comments below are always welcome and if you haven't done so already please subscribe to petra bedford plenty more content to come i'll put electric classic cars social details make sure you follow them on instagram and facebook and twitter and youtube see you on the next film guys take care drive safe youhey guys and welcome to petroped and welcome to mid wales and a very very special car get away from my car i'm a very special mate guys back on the channel now that ain't a normal defender in the background is it my friend it's a beast it's a beast ready to be unleashed on the hills of wales that thing is tesla powered monster ryan roller titles mate what a thing it's beast in it it's a flop a beast so tell us about the car and then tell us what you've done to it right so the vehicle itself obviously land rover double cab um it's kind of a replica of the bond spectre yeah rover that's what they svx did those didn't they that's right uh without the city big rope on the front which i thought is yeah i can't put that on no there's no snorkel either there is no snorkel yeah yeah this kind kind of gives the game away as to what we've done yeah exactly so what have you done right in your electric classic cars madness obviously you've gone very sensible with this one you know me yes no that's never been sensible in your life uh what have we done so we've taken all the dirty smelly stuff out and we've replaced it with power which means a tesla drive unit so we put it tesla drive unit in the in the middle so we're taking it usually drives the rear wheels and we've kind of turned it 90 degrees changed the gear set in uh put a limited slip diff in and then that drives the front and rear prop yeah and that means that if we just simply did that and floored it everything else would break then we've got to upgrade everything land rover on it so the axles are heavy-duty uh axles in it the cv joints everything land roverish now has been upgraded including a limited slip diff in the front and rear axles as well so it's actually you've got three diffs or three limiters like this correct yeah so off-road wise it's fantastic in fact it's probably better off road now as it was before yeah there's no high low diff sorry high low gears in it because essentially you don't need that it's got maximum torque from 0 rpm so you don't really need high and low for that it doesn't really need the lock diff in it because it's got the three lsds and if you do lift one wheel off the ground you just kind of put your foot a little bit on the uh brake to drag it a little bit and it kind of like helps all the others just engage so it's a beast off road now which is why i brought you up here for a bit of play time it's perfect doesn't it and then uh battery pack wise battery pack wise let me show you it's probably easiest so we've got a full tesla battery pack in it as well so we've got the tesla motor in and a full tesla battery pack so we've got 10 in here and six in the back so a typical tesla model s or model x has 16 tesla modules in and we've put 10 in the front six in the back and it's all in here with a sealed battery box in you've got things like a vent here you're probably wondering why is there a radiator on it yes well this this is actually a dual radiator so this radiator here is cooling the motor and inverter yeah and this smaller radiator here is cooling the battery pack so uh yeah you still need to cool these things down just nowhere near as n as much as a diesel or a petrol car yeah um so we've got 20 21 kilowatt charging system on it as well so three phase ac charging on it no ccs on this one but we've got another land rover in the workshop it's got ccs on for rapid dc charging uh so yeah it's a 100 kilowatt hour pack wow so it's a decent sized pack but you've got to do that because it's coupled to a car which has the aerodynamics of a garden shed mate it's not going to be the most aero is it really no unpleasant you've got it's not just an aerodynamics of a garden shed you've got things like this and this on yeah act like a parachute so think of it as a garden shed with parachutes on going down the road that's what the aerodynamics is like and then you've got again with a rolling resistance of those bad boys no so it needs a big battery pack to be able to cope with the fact it's a big heavy vehicle aerodynamics are awful rolling resistance is even worse um but to be fair the torque of the motor you hardly even notice it's got these big wheels and tires on yeah because usually with a diesel or petrol um uh land rover if you put big massive wheels and tires on it you feel it it's a bit sluggish and it doesn't quite go as fast overtaking overtaken's a bit of a chore but this because of the amount of talking it it's just i hardly notice it you just floor it and it still is ridiculously overpowered so you brought me up to this rather spectacular location with my garden we're surrounded yeah your back garden surrounded by um off-road capabilities just pick pick a direction and we'll go that way we'll go that way yeah let's go it's a proper case to lift yourself up so this thing's just so cool mate seriously it's been done beautifully inside though yeah it's nice and that it didn't come to us like this obviously i mean we've done a full-on interior our lovely trimmers have done a fantastic job there yeah so the seats are heated seats as well so a bit of luxury in the defender how's this look now the uh torch yeah that just just pulls out it charges up when it's in the hole so it's brilliant so i like that excellent we've got uh for me the luxury for uh for me in these is the fact that there's more space for the driver which sounds really weird in defender yeah but because there's no clutch pedal yeah and there's no gear like sticks or four wheel drive and lock and there's normally two gear sticks there a handbrake here and without the clutch pedal i've just got more space there's a driver which you still have to put your arm out the window to be able to like drive the properly with the steering wheel it just feels more spacious in here because it's electric now then we probably have to address the elephant in the room in here yeah well you probably could get an elephant in us no masks oh yeah we've had our coat and that is the reason we had a cover test because we were filming together yesterday and we had to pass a cobra test before we could do that indeed so we are covered free i'm not pregnant and you're not pregnant yeah it might be by the end of this one right we're going to that place are we yeah yeah right let's go right come on then so i guess it's just a case of uh stick it in drive and you have to turn it on crank it to start it and then you've got your little rnd for reverse neutron drive yeah and i'll resist it take your bucket it's electric parking brake so epb is recording is that the one off for tesla um or did you change the what's the first one you did yeah we tried the tesla parking brake but it didn't hold a vehicle of this size and weight yeah um because the discs on a tesla are like yay big this on the land rover a little bit smaller so it didn't have that like grip so we changed to will wood in the end and they hold it lovely yeah because it is a bit of a wakey beast yeah because the brakes on these um take me take me away what the brakes on these um it's normally does it break during in the gearbox or the diff or something yeah so the handbrake on a now a normal land rover is actually on the transfer case yeah so it's a there's like a drum brake on the uh transfer case obviously we've lost the transfer case and yeah replacing it yeah it's gone so the first thing is that you can feel the knobbles on those massive tyres even though yeah yeah it doesn't happen it doesn't help the fact that we're actually on gravel and stuff now but yeah you definitely feel the nozzles at lower speeds yeah yeah and on tarmac and in the workshop yeah you feel like you're going over something so the the the large tesla is what 450 odd horsepower but i guess for this it's all about the torque all about the torque yeah and you've got lots of low down torque i mean you know as i said this is quite a a weighty beast of a vehicle yeah and uh you know i'm hardly touching this role which is why you don't need that high low diff i mean we've got good regen as well for hill descent mode as well so you don't necessarily when you're uh when you're off-roading want to be using the brake too much going downhill you can help it so you want to use engine braking on this case regen with a motor so it's got quite a high regen in for that respect but uh yeah it's just yeah yeah yeah and it's just a stunning place here we're not even at the top yet right you can have a go and once we get up the top oh music tomorrow a bit of a rag around so you've done uh obviously we did one of these in series one vintage voltage yes um and you've done quite a few now i think we've done five now yeah i think uh we've got an order for i think it's another five i don't know it's more than that um about another 15 on ordinary wow now the the question i get most asked whenever i do something with you is about how much these conversions cost see it's a battery pack and motor that's a big chunk yeah it's a bit it's not cheap to do a conversion on something like this because you've got to use the biggest battery pack yeah and the biggest smoker you have to upgrade all the land river stuff to be able to cope with that power as well so yeah you're talking about 75 to 90 grand depending on spec yeah you convert something like this so unfortunately it's not cheap by any stretch you have to get out do the gates you've got to do gates man game it's not a country boy i wonder if he knows how to use a gate well done good gate work there yeah right man i tell you what you do have to hold yourself in there i'll sing in you're not a country boy so i was thinking the gates you might be in it you know the plane now approaching gate five not quite this kind of country the south downs are quite good so yeah so they're not cheap things and even the smaller conversions they're quite a lot of money and i think yeah the amount of work you guys have to do to do it is immense yes i mean the prices are starting to come down as we're starting to do more volumes yeah so we're starting to do land rover defenders in batches of two three fours etc yeah and that brings the cost down um the repeatability of the design means we can you know more quickly knock up some battery boxes with the plasma table and stuff so yeah the prices are coming down in that respect yeah um but our conversions start from anything from say you know 15 to 20 grand for a little city car like the 500 yeah 75 mile range which is plenty in the city um right the way up to basically the defenders and the range rovers which is probably the high end which uh you know they need massive battery packs so you need lots of power yeah all the other pieces upgraded to be able to cope with that so that's probably the opposite end of the spectrum so you mentioned it in the intro but let's just kind of everyone help them understand exactly how you've done the conversion because the tesla motor that's in fact it's pretty much underneath us yes in a tesla model x or more less that would be between the rear axles sideways correct and you've twisted you've turned that 90 degrees and dropped it in the middle of the car yep with and i'll put some b-roll over while we're talking with with the driveshafts coming out to the front and rear axle but you have to make the motor spin the other way yes that's right that's all about that yep you're right so we need to see i remember these things somebody's paying attention yeah it's not me so it's actually running in reverse yes but a motor doesn't actually care which way it's spinning but the oil pump that's inside the drive unit does yes obviously then it will be blowing all into the sump rather than the other way around so we've had to put a um a little solution in to reverse the oil pump to be able to work in the opposite direction yeah but apart from that that's the only thing we needed to do to get it to run in reverse really um say a motor doesn't care if it's spinning this way or that way so and then we had to change the gear set because if you didn't change the gear set it would literally be probably maxing out at 55 miles an hour it will get up to 55 miles an hour very quickly yeah yeah oh look at that this is like something out of top gear look at that yeah this is on the tops now that's quite the tops we'll go up to the tops to win wind turbines later on but uh what else it mate that's epic that's that's in regen now so i mean i've not touched the brake at all yeah so uh so that's like hill descent control it is charging the batteries yeah but it's it's actually better than normal um hill descent mode impacts on diesel cars because essentially it's it's so smoothly you know applying braking to all four wheels yeah because it's an electric motor if we can get onto that ridge i don't know mate i'm sure a lot of you i'm sure a man of your caliber can find out let's find out this is this is proper off-roading let's look at that human see where we're going over ridge wow good we're good we're good all good let's just go this way there's no there's no tracks this way they always say the adventure starts when the road ends yeah there's no road definitely man look at that there's quite a drop down there yeah we won't go that way that's not a good idea but uh i think we try to go up there that might be fun we've got a music winch on the front what's the worst that could happen eh get stuck we've got a land anchor with you what a land anchor a land anchor yeah we've got a big winch i don't know how that would help but it's um i might see if we can get up there it gives you i think it gives you over confidence yeah having success lord stop it you're kidding me should we give it a go yeah okay i i think just for safety purposes we should get out and have a look that is just insane all right you're safe mate you reckon yeah i'm never safe in the car it's just why at least we've checked yeah all right ready yeah do it again that's wicked so we try it this way yeah do this way all right let's give it a go i was going to say let's do a run up and do a jump off i think there's a when i was younger i might have done some insecurities but i'm i'm old and sensible now bro i mean if you're driving towards that you think there's no way a vehicle is going to drive up that that's not this time but uh let's see i'll keep the same speed yeah oh my god it's not even blinked at it is it that was easy you're kidding me too easy that's about 45 degrees that was nuts mate you have made an off-roading monster i'm telling you bring on the zombie apocalypse so i'll tell you what all right anybody says ooh you the electric phone cars you're destroying the original drive one of these uh i think you should have go yeah come on so when you said oh do you wanna have a drive i thought he might be on some tarmac not on the nah oh you've done that enough times in your life mate yeah give me some proper welsh experience i'm trying qualified i can't believe he's letting me have a go at this right right i feel like a driving instructor okay so put it in d for drive yeah parking brake is off and just slowly introduce the throttle oh there we go and just walk it over just head straight most surreal thing ever it is a strange feeling to know that you can just basically just drive over stuff like that that is i can't see a thing i don't i know there's a big drop in that's phenomenal if you floored it it would just fly off that thing i'm warning you now don't do that i forgot to say it but it will just fly up there so while we're driving back and having another go because on time like this this car will do not to 60 probably about five seconds which isn't bad for like two point five tonne of here now where are we gonna be heading up i reckon you should go over it right oh come on then go over the uh the wall of rock that one right there yeah i'm gonna get out i'm gonna fill it up so here we go slow and gentle lots and lots of talk oh my goodness me that is oh my god that's amazing that is utterly amazing let's go there okay let's go up there that's called the widowmaker that's um yeah let's go that way we'll head towards the wind turbines because there'll be some nice uh iconic sort of footage for you up there wow doesn't it make off-roading i mean you've you've driven and apparently have qualifications i have qualifications yeah you've mentioned it once or twice yeah um this is just exceptional um but isn't this easier than like a petrol and like a diesel it's the application of the torque you don't have to worry about clutch control you just i mean i've hardly got any throttle on there at all um and i i think there's an argument actually to say i reckon these would be more um sensitive to off-road than a petrol car because you're going to have less wheel spin you're just going to be applying the power so smoothly that this is ridiculous i'm not even trying yeah you just apply the throttle as to what speed you want to maintain and there's no you can't stall it i mean it's just simple an idiot could uh go off-roading good couldn't they yes they came back you just prove that i've proved that many times right like this wicked yeah i i was never into land rovers ever i've always been a vw and porsche guy and my old vw porsches and andrew was uh i'm liv i live here basically well it is land rover it's where people come to pretend they can off road yeah but we live here yeah so having grown up with land rovers i just thought of them as nothing more than a glorified tractor it's a farm implementer but now since i built an electric one i love it i've got one myself as you know it's in the workshop your one's gonna be proper yeah so tell us about that because i use that for a bit of b-roll but that's beautiful so my take on the land rover is it needs to be nice and simple like the old land rovers when i was in school and went to my mates advanced they were very simple things yeah and i wanted to strip it down to essentially their simple enjoyment of a land rover so it's all stripped out no carpets it's actually just got wood slats on the floor um so it can easily be just brushed out with a mud uh no sound deadening uh no door panels at all it's just stripped down um a 90 which is the shorter one yeah two door um no roof on it even but this is your car mate so it's going to be a bit bonkers i mean it's probably not going to push uh the truth to say it will be the quickest land rover in the world yes it it just simply will be and because you're doing it it's going to have a 600 horsepower tesla drive unit 600 it's light i've i've taken the opportunity i can't even be am i saying the word lightweight and land rover in the same sentence i know uh you know there are such things as lightweight land rovers but yeah i have got on things like plastic wings because they they have uh plastic wings you can get now and some other opportunities to lose weight here and there yeah but yeah it's gonna be ridiculously quick it's a beautiful thing uh i may put a roll bar or roll gauge on it as well yeah just because you know i'm very sensible yeah yes i would probably think about doing that um look at this how cool is this one yeah so this is one when this is built this is actually the largest wind turbine a wind farm if you like in the country i think there's something close to a hundred wind turbines up here like that is ridiculous you like that that's amazing good toy now it is very very windy up here but that's a good reason to have a wind farm that's right and that actually is powered by dual engine my uh electricity supplier is a renewable energy supplier like this it has actually powered it so there you go it's about as green off-road as you can get there you go powered by renewables it's got no emissions it's and it's a wet and it'll go anywhere um guys i hope you enjoyed that one i'll put moggy's details and electric classic cars details below keep an eye out for us vintage voltage uh but yeah amazing vehicle have you enjoyed it always love spending time with you mate um we're gonna enjoy ourselves driving back down again yeah let's have some more fun anyway guys i hope you enjoyed that if you have done so give me a thumbs up comments below are always welcome and if you haven't done so already please subscribe to petra bedford plenty more content to come i'll put electric classic cars social details make sure you follow them on instagram and facebook and twitter and youtube see you on the next film guys take care drive safe you\n"