- I really like the look of the car, but from the title it sounds like a Mustang has been converted into an FSD Tesla ("teslafied" Mustang) - but Tesla suspension, Tesla interior... this smells like a Mustang body fitted onto a Tesla chassis ("mustangified" Tesla).
I suspect that this might be more of a "Mustang body kit" on a Tesla chassis and not retrofitting the Tesla tech into a Mustang chassis + body. Still cool, but maybe misleading.
by public_void
1 subcomments
- I used to work at a company that did self driving. The sensor setup was more complicated than Tesla (cameras, lidar, etc), but the fact that FSD can still work on this car despite the cameras being in a different place is really impressive to me. Our sensors were pretty sensitive to accurate calibration, and iirc any time we tried to move our sensor array to a new car it took a ton of work to reconfigure it to make the sensor fusion output work.
by AngryData
1 subcomments
- From the article it sounds like the inverse, they took a Tesla and stuck a classic car exterior shell on it, not transplant the electric car parts into a mustang frame. It is still kind of neat but is not the same thing to me. You don't normally upgrade a classic car by chopping out the entire frame and sticking the body panels onto a modern car.
- Here's one of a fully custom Toyota 4x4 truck getting a Tesla Model 3 motor that I enjoyed. I would love to have a small electric pickup like this, but I don't want to invest $100k to get it done
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=siEhd4Z-6Ts
- It's an impressive build of "putting a Mustang shell on a Model 3", but for God's sake why didnt they swap the seats and steering wheel at least. Got to be the worst-looking interior I've ever seen.
by SoftTalker
5 subcomments
- It would be cool if we saw the separation of drivetrain from body in the automobile market. This happens with heavy trucks, you can buy a "glider" which is a completely new, finished rolling chassis and you provide your own engine. Originally done (I think) to skirt emissions laws but it would be cool to be able to buy the body and the EV drivetrain (and maybe battery packs?) from different vendors, and for EV drivetrains to be more easily fittable to older chassis.
- This sort of conversion gets coverage every once in a while and it's been neat to see old frames getting chopped onto new electric drivetrains. I spoke with one of the people interviewed in this article[1] a couple years back about converting an old truck I have sitting around into an EV.
The Model 3 approach takes their unified rear axle (motor,axle,wheels) and mounts it into an existing frame. Then you just need to find a place to stuff the batteries, retrofit some high-voltage electronics, and you're off to the races. One of the drawbacks of that approach is that it changes the stance of the vehicle, but for this Mustang that doesn't seem to matter much - it still looks classic.
Other converters either go for the high end with a model S and fit the motor into a traditional drivetrain for a sleeper build, or they go for the low end and take an old forklift motor and batteries and build what is effectively a street-legal golf cart. Prices range from $5-100k depending on your level of DIY and how dangerous of a classic car you want on the other side of the process.
[1] https://coloradosun.com/2023/06/25/classic-cars-electric-veh...
- Superfastmatt did something similar with a very very old Jag... (Sans the FSD)
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLoTU9_iCGa6i_C38pwQyg0pBG...
His channel comes highly recommended for anyone even remotely interested in cars by the way.
by wishinghand
1 subcomments
- I’d love to do something similar to an El Camino. I don’t even need triple digit range; I’d use it as a local runabout, mostly to my art studio.
- > It’s likely the first non-Tesla vehicle to run FSD, and it achieves 258 Wh/mi — roughly matching the efficiency of an actual Model 3.
This claim is implausible, right? The Mustang is unambiguously less aerodynamic than the Model 3; there's no way it is achieving similar efficiency, especially at highway speeds.
by rootusrootus
0 subcomment
- That's really cool, though I confess I would have preferred the interior to have been more Mustang and less Model 3. Just a quibble, though, the effort is fantastic.
by beedeebeedee
0 subcomment
- Neat. I would have preferred the original interior over Tesla's, but I guess it would then just be an electric conversion and not a "Tesla" conversion with "FSD".
- Well, when there's a software created accident, possibly horrendous, I'm sure Tesla will be relieved that it's one case where they can point to it being a completely unauthorized system for which they reject responsibility.
by jazzyjackson
2 subcomments
- Whatever happened to the electric delorean reboot?
EDIT: at one point whoever owned the name also owned a warehouse of spare parts and was going to produce an electric retrofit kit for the old vehicle, and hinting at manufacturing new ones a la retromod. Whoever owns the name now just has concept rendering on their site and a Solana token, so, little more than a meme coin now :(
- Retro-electric stuff makes so little sense since it's the worst of all worlds. Part of why Teslas get decent range is the slippery body. I wince every time I see people clamoring for the VW Scout reboot. Rivian too with their 140kwh batteries just to give people that nostalgic body-on-frame SUV look with usable range.
- That Vagabond Builds video... They edited it, but left in a claim it had a frunk. The commentary felt like engagement optimized stream of consciousness blather. They cut out shots of the car being moved and never showed it being driven.
- how some people gobble up Tesla FSD - when it's clearly inferior to options out there from Waymo, GM Supercruise or hell even Ford.
- This is such a waste of time and money and wow it’s absolutely gorgeous and I want it
- This is so cool. I would love to revitalize a generation of great, but perhaps boring older cars with FSD. Just so much work...
by hiroto_lemon
0 subcomment
- I hope they implement this in other car models as well, and make autonomous driving possible in Japan too.
by LurkandComment
1 subcomments
- I've been waiting for someone to do something like this as long as I've known electric cars to be a thing. I hope they just start making them like this.
- OMG, that steering wheel is just hideous!
- So where is the startup to convert any car to electric?
- When will I be able to get an affordable restomod for my early-2000s Jetta?
- I wonder if tesla will see this and try to invalidate the VIN from using FSD
- That is the safest 1966 Mustang on the road.
by annoyingnoob
0 subcomment
- Interesting, love the concept. Don't love the modern interior.
- It should've been a black Pontiac Trans-Am.
- Nice work, but is it just me or does this take away from the car’s original spirit?
by WalterBright
0 subcomment
- I took my 1972 Dodge small block engine out and converted it to 400 hp. Had to upgrade the transmission, driveline, brakes, radiator, and suspension to match. I self-drive it.
- I know this is not the way the industry or regulations work, but I wish electric car platforms let you pick body styles without waiting for a whole model to come out. I'd love an electric Suzuki Jimny body, and could care less about the driving platform.
by dainiusse
1 subcomments
- Why destroy this beauty
by sandworm101
0 subcomment
- A 66 mustang ... without the sound? A lion without a roar.
And at these prices, you would reduce far more carbon by investing that money in solar panels. 50k buys at least a 20kw system that would more than make up for your summer weekend drives in a classic mustang.
by Forgeties79
0 subcomment
- Still bothers me that “full self driving” is not fully self driving. They shouldn’t be allowed to call it that.
- People have been doing these conversions forever with teslas.
by AtlasBarfed
0 subcomment
- I have a dream that electric motors + battery get so compact that you can make kits that fit engine blocks and large numbers of cars can be custom swapped relatively cheaply.
by AndrewKemendo
0 subcomment
- There was a shop in Dallas back about 20 years ago that did an electric conversion of a H1 Humvee. Since then there’s been lots more conversions like that and to me that is a valid recycling business.
by sublinear
2 subcomments
- > It demonstrates that Tesla’s hardware and software stack is more portable than the company’s licensing struggles would suggest.
Unless I missed something, this is a completely unsupported claim by the article. Passion projects and retrofits are nothing at all like manufacturing.
by anshumankmr
0 subcomment
- good luck getting it repaired though honestly this is really cool
- It is basically a Mustang body on a tesla chasis... which misses the point of having a classic car.
While there is nothing wrong with converting your classic car to electric, if the powertrain is shot (they are harder to maintain as they age), but IMO, it looses the charm of the point of having a classical car.
Few years ago, there was a trend to do these conversions, but that stopped as people realised the car loses its charm and the feel of having old classic car, and most of them are not being used as dailies anyways.
- [dead]
by zthrowaway
1 subcomments
- As a classic car owner/hobbyist, this disgusts me. But thankfully there are at least 200k other restored/restorable 60s Mustangs out there.
by actionfromafar
0 subcomment
- Oh, a good looking Tesla.
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