DIY EV CHAT
There’s an incredible, global community that has sprung up around the desire to convert old cars to electric. People who love recycling and people who are doing it for performance. People who want to save money, and people doing it just for the fun of the engineering challenge. I set out to meet an interview some of them, and then give them a forum for discussion, with DIY EV Chat.
Fiachra Cooke and the Leaf-powered Audi 8e
In this episode of DIY EV Chat I speak to Fiachra Cooke about his Nissan Leaf-powered Audi 8e. Fiachra has a history of VW and Audi-based projects, and when he stumbled across Damien Maguire's videos he immediately knew he wanted to make an electric Avant (estate). Find out how he did it, and what he's working on now as his whole career has changed to focus on EV conversions.
You can find Fiachra online on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/user/Scampi6000) and Twitter (https://twitter.com/fiachracooke). And check out his new employer AVA, making some absolutely gorgeous electrified classics: https://www.studioava.com/.
Check out some of the newspaper articles on Fiachra's car too:
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/underground-green-army-preaches-to-the-converters-7wbzgpcn2
Finally, have to give another shout out to Damien Maguire, the gateway drug for so many DIY EVers. Check out his videos here: https://www.youtube.com/c/Evbmw. If you have questions, ask them to the community over on OpenInverter: https://openinverter.org/forum/
Paul Compton and the 100mph electric Scirocco
In this episode of DIY EV chat I speak to stalwart of the EV conversion scene, Paul Compton, a man with an incredible car history and some fantastic projects underway. We talk about EV racing in the US (check out the YouTube clip below), taking on other people's dodgy conversions, and his upcoming Lotus projects. And we cover the restoration of his ground-breaking electric VW/Karmann Scirocco.