Agenda

• Introductions by new attendees
• What’s new in the EV world
• Thoughts on Caterham’s plans for EV
• Seven Conversions
• AOB

Attendees

• John (JM)
• Dan
• Tom
• Jonathan
• John

Intro’s By New Attendees

None

Caterham Cars and Electric Vehicles

• JM explained he had spent time with CC recently. Some things could be talked about and some can’t
• There will be a new car that isn’t a Seven, with all the fundamentals of a Seven.
• There will also be an EV Seven if there’s a business case for it
• JM’s thoughts are that CC have realised they are known for the Seven and therefore an EV Seven
• Also heard that new car (not 7) will be aimed at a new market - so if they’re not going to alienate the current customer base then they may need an electric 7
• JM reported he went to the CC new factory opening with the Club
• AIM announced a new electric car, headed by someone that worked with Bob at Nissan. The AIM car will use an Equipmake drivetrain
• JM reported that he met Equipmake and CC at Snetterton. Equipmake are based on a business park next to Snetterton and JM had a factory tour. Lots going on at Equipmake and seem to be a very competent operation (need to be careful as they are stock market listed)
• JM reported on being taken around Snetterton in a 420 Cup - liked the suspension setup and may be useful for an EV.
• Discussion about putting SwindonPowertrain motor in transmission tunnel of SV. It should fit and would release a lot more space in the engine bay. JM will be visiting SwindonPowerTrain later in May

JM Project Car

• JM reported that his project car now has a V5 and number plate
• The first decision is to chose the motor
• May LF will have next instalment of JM’s Putting the EV in Seven series
• Discussion about how Caterham’s are getting more expensive and how increased expense means increased expectation on quality. Even more so for a new car with an even higher price
• JM reported that he’s been busy but not on his project
• JM said he’s now looking at using ID3/4 battery modules now. Has seen them now in a few places and may go for second hand modules that are better density than previous LG modules he’d been looking at.
• Discussion around how if you can sensibly recover crash damaged car’s EV batteries, then they have probably been over engineered in the first place. Perhaps that’s needed but has the impact that second hand modules are good for conversions
• Insurance companies far more likely to write off an EV after an accident
• JM reported that there are new CCS modules now coming to market that also include contactors. JM will try and find out more details.

Chinese Electric Cars

• Discussion around how Chinese cars (including MG) may get a march on the existing car manufacturers

Discussion about Charging Infrastructure

• It’s patchy!
• M5 and M6 are ok. M1 bad
• Reports of Liverpool and Leeds also being bad
• New provider MFG seem to have good (more northerly) infrastructure that works well