[racer_ash]

Love the sweet exhaust note? Want your engine to breathe easier? Would not mind those extra 20-30 horses and the additional twisting force of the engine? Well, many of you must have guessed what I am talking about by now.

For those that haven't, and I am sure there aren't many on this forum, I am talking about the tasty mods that we BHPians carry out on our rides. For decades now, the IC engine has been ruling the roost and enthusiasts have spiced up their cars with free flow exhausts, k&n filters, crazy remaps and what not. For the more advanced, there were rebuilds and even engine swaps.

With the advents of EVs, many of the above mods will be things of the past. No exhausts, no air filters, no remaps. Heck, there are people trying to figure out on how they can make these EVs emit a damn noise.

Long story short, I have started this thread to understand the future of mods that BHPians will carry out, considering the future is and will be EVs. Will the mods we carry out pull at out heart strings like they do now, or will they be boring and bland and uninteresting?

Pour in your views please.

[GTO]

Hahaha! Nice thread. Thanks for sharing .

I think EVs will become like smartphones in a way, where you'll have a lot of software hacks (e.g. to find hidden features) and loads of apps.

Performance mods should be quick & easy to push the car to levels of performance the manufacturer wouldn't want to (due to higher stress or lesser range). Am sure we'll also see hacks for super-economy modes to extend range that'll go beyond the manufacturer's "eco" mode.

"Engine swaps" will be a LOT easier with EVs as I expect motors & batteries to become commoditized. There will be many common electric motors & batteries by suppliers, unlike say a VW TSI engine or DSG which is exclusive to VAG cars and elusive to everyone else.

"Battery swaps" might be a possibility too, either for more range or more performance.

[Rahul Rao]

Easiest thing to modify will be the speed limiter. the control software for most motors is designed to supply maximum starting torque, and initial acceleration. Cruising at 80 in a Verito loads the motor to less than 10 Hp, the full 40 Hp are usable only to accelerate, if software is modified to provide the full current in all conditions performance will increase drastically but with a extreme drop in range.


Rahul

[SmartCat]

Mods to power home with the EV car battery should be quite popular, thanks to frequent power cuts. Plug your car at the office and bring power home!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTEENrbyeAg

Batteries On Wheels: In The Future, Electric Cars Can Power Homes
https://www.forbes.com/sites/davekea.../#5f9c92f611e5

[Locomotive]

Time to find that hot Octavia VRS and nurse it to extinction!!

[gauravanekar]

1. Range extension through added battery pack
2. Weight reduction through battery swap
3. Drive train controller remap
4. Autonomous power supply limiters based on traffic data
5. Battery cooler upgrades
6. Battery heater upgrades
7. Autonomous car conversion kits
8. Modular battery setup swap, use a small battery for daily commutes and range extender battery for long drives
9. Easy charging solutions at the night parking place ( just park, lock &go) pantograph style battery chargers to take care of charging
10. Audio upgrades forever, because no mass manufacturer worth his salt would ever provide a good music system

[Storm2.0]

Considering the frequent power cuts in Bangalore we might have some heavy duty inverters/batteries to charge vehicles at home or power banks to charge on the go when away from home.

[landcruiser123]

Have you ever seen the ludicrous mode of a Tesla?

There will be many mods for sure. Some of them being software enabled (like hacks, hidden features) or some of them being physical like a better battery, better cooling systems, and a high-performance motor. That being said, modifications will be a new game. I've spent 2 years in my life building cars for SAE and I know the joy I find in taking a spanner and playing with a camber or extending the tubing for ram air intakes. I probably will never get that with an electric vehicle.

A man who's spent 30 years modifying IC engines and getting his hands dirty will hate the fact he'd have just a computer as his main tool. You can't convert a grease-monkey into a nerdy geek.

[Aravind_M92]

I would say the golden period for any thing that happens would be the first few years of it's discovery. Once it becomes a common commodity, people do get bored and are oriented more towards efficiency than performance! I would say the current period is the golden period for the EVs. It's still a primitive, uncommon mode or transportation with huge scopes for future ideas!

Considering the fact that about 80% of electricity comes from fossil fuels implies that if we do shift to electric vehicles, the additional load to power these vehicles would still be from fossil fuel! Why create a longer route when you can utilize them directly! It does contradict the fact that fossil fuels aren't going to be around for long, why can"t we develop fuel alternates.

But EVs do come with their list of advantages. There are far more less moving parts than a ICE. Thus making replacements easier! Also there is instant power available to the wheels thus making them really fast. But on the downfall, these are heat and vibration sensitive. This leaves a huge void to be discovered! Also EVs do come in as autonomous and connected, thus leaving a huge chance to be hacked easily. Soon I believe there would be subscription charges like those VPN browsers to keep your car safe! Personally I feel in future personal cars would become obsolete with increase in more mass oriented mode of transportation. We're already seeing integrated townships with everything, like your job, schools, hospitals, shopping complexes, literally everything cutting down the need for transportation. Majority of my friends have the mentality to take a cab or be driven around rather than driving themselves!

Change is inevitable. Lets all hope for good and let there a safe and clean future

[xjosephjacob]

Assuming a lot of modularity is going to come in, I'm excited about the prospects of 4 wheel drive cars getting simpler and cheaper. Just add an additional motor to where there's no power !

Ah, and the Chinese may storm our market with budget products with 'flagship killer' kind of value propositions. Interesting times ahead.

[DrCar]

Many possibilities are available to modify an EV:
- Want to have extended range? Install a bigger battery.
- Want to participate in a drag race? Install a smaller capacity battery to reduce weight.
-Want to charge your humble electric scooter? Car will act as a power bank.
- Want to allow your child to drive once he or she reaches legal age but fearing for their safety? Restrict the speed with your phone app which modifies the battery performance and car performance accordingly.
- Want to drift? Switch off traction control and let the enormous torque from the battery allow you to have fun.

On a funny note, if your battery dies and the car is unable to start, just ask few people to push your car and apply brake all of a sudden. People pushing the car may be wondering what is he upto, but only you know about the technology called regenerative braking

[aaychat]

What a great thread. While I wait for more knowledgable souls to add value and info to it, I want to talk stock figures. Everybody talks about range. What about power expectations?

What do you think will be the average power and torque figures in the Indian mass market with electric cars in say a 3-5 year timespan.

To provide some perspective, currently with ICE engines, we generally see anything between 40bhp/65nm (alto end of the spectrum)-200bhp/300nm (c-class end of the spectrum), not counting low volume, high-performance models.

I'm guessing torque will start to matter more and more, especially given the instant nature of it in electrics and our bumper to bumper traffic in (sometimes) overloaded cars.

As an enthusiast, my hope is that we move to at least 100 ps of power for the lowest end of the spectrum.

[sharktale]

What we could also see are special software upgrades that have limited validity.

Eg : Track pack or Drift pack. Take your EV to the local circuit, activate drift mode, and the car's in-built AI would download some routines which either help you drift better or do it for you.

These packs will have limited validity like the micro transactions in today's games.

It will help the manufacturers earn consistently and also encourage them to push for more variety in their offerings

[Carpainter]

Nice thread. I think the most popular mods will be battery related. Like battery booster, power saver etc. Some will be software related because I think future engines will have a lot of software integration. Like driving modes, terrain response etc. Some mods will be there forever like car audio, headlamp mods, tyre and suspension etc. But in battery powered cars it'll be more like a computer on wheels. So anything like a gadget can be installed be it in software of hardware form like range extender, fake exhaust note, interior lighting etc. Possibilities are endless but nothing will bring back the joy of driving a smooth turbo petrol.

[gururajrv]

Nice thread. EV’s should still can have remaps to its ECU but downpipe / full exhaust system is what I’m going to miss the most because they’re silent Tarmac burners