Evoforce wrote:Again... You may see no value in it, but as electric vehicles get older and older there will be more people interested in keeping those cars on the road, and in doing so will want to make them as up to date in capacity (range) as they can. Our current cars are quickly getting behind the curve and I believe many will look for a way to keep them viable. When you can buy the car cheap, you have a lot more room to play with engineering... You personally may just move on to the next new toy, while someone else for other reasons may want to repurpose or add to, what in many respects, could be made to be like new.
I would highly doubt there would be enough people interested in keeping those cars on the road to support a business. Also keep in mind that due to limited range your potential customers will have to be very close to you, pay to ship the car to you and possibly ship it back or pay for shipping of a very large heavy battery then find someone else to do the work. There are a few people still keeping replacement batteries alive for the original insight but at least with that car it runs fine on gas when the battery goes so people can road trip it for a day to get it done and the battery can ship fedex anywhere for max a few hundred then 2 people can lift it into the car. Plus the other thing to consider is the car is very unique and a two seater that's kinda fun to drive. The whole market for EV converted cars is driven by either speed or passion. Either you want a drag race car or you want to drive a car you love and have passion for with zero emissions or just better performance than it ever had. Even in that market the best way to convert an old car to go fast is with a cheap DC motor and controller and almost all the controller companies have gone out of business or stopped making controllers.
There will never be enough people who LOVE the original leaf to support an aftermarket battery business, especially when the used 2016 30kWh cars will be a significant upgrade with everything else the same that they love(a good condition one would give the range of a worn out 12/13 with a second partially worn out batter). Once the off leases come from those cars when the Bolt, Model 3 and Leaf 2 are out I'd expect them to have values similar or lower than 12s are now and be a much better buy than a 12 is now.