Thursday Twister: Best Volvo For Electrocution
If you search the news from the last day or two, you may have read that Volvo is going all-electric for the 2019 model year…and despite what the Negative Nancys at Forbes have to say about it or what the dumbasses at NBC claim (they’ve never heard to Tesla, Faraday Future, Fisker, GOVECs, ZAP, Enfield Auto, Bachelle…I could go on forever) Volvo is positioning itself for the electric future. But I am an old fashioned lover of simple things that I can fix in my garage and hybrid powertrains are as scary as Marylin Manson’s finger puppet collection — I REALLY DON’T WANT A HYBRID late model Volvo. Sorry, but if I’m going to drive an electric car from those wacky Swedes, it will be something electrified from the past…so for today’s Thursday Twister, I’m going to ask you — what is the best Volvo to turn electric.
My choice is the classic Amazon — like this 1967 Volvo 122S Amazon coupe offered here on eBay for $10,500 buy-it-now or make-offer located in Los Angeles, CA.
Another alternative is this 1966 Volvo 122S Amazon coupe offered here on eBay bidding for $1,662 with 1 day to go, located in Anaheim, CA.
What Volvo would you make into a Volvesla?
There were a ton of clickbait headlines that implied Volvo was going electric-only starting in 2019, and they were misleading.
The non-fake news is that starting in 2019, all Volvos will be electrified in some way, i.e. either hybrid gas/electric or full electric. So they will still sell gasoline & diesel engines in their vehicles, but only when paired with some manner of electric drive as well.
Despite mob mentality, a mild hybrid is not an alternative fuel vehicle. 100% of the energy used to power the vehicle was originally stored in petroleum form, unless it's a plug-in hybrid, and even then there's a good chance it all came from fossil fuels anyway.
And to answer Vince's question in the post above…I'd chose either a 145 or 245 (wagon) for an all-electric conversion. Plenty o' space for batteries in the cargo area under the floor, plus tons of fun in the engine bay (especially 240).
That would be my choice too. I've sometimes been wondering just how big a locomotive traction motor is and how much used ones go for…
The blue Amazon looks like a good deal, and I bet you could cover a lot of the conversion cost by selling off the drivetrain.
Bobinott rant in 3..2…1…