We are proud to announce that Electrogenic has been selected with Babcock International Group to re-engineer four British Army Land Rovers to all-electric drive using Electrogenic’s proprietary technology.
Babcock International, the defence company, has been contracted by the Ministry of Defence (MOD) to help the British Army understand the Defence application and constraints of electric propulsion. Babcock will convert four in-service military Land Rovers (two protected vehicles and two general service) using Electrogenic’s standard Land Rover Defender E90 conversion kits. The vehicles will then be put to the test by the Armoured Trials and Development Unit (ATDU) in a series of experimental battlefield / military scenarios, which will assess performance over steep terrain, wading and towing, and different climate-related conditions.
Corporal Bryan Munce, from the Armoured Trials and Development Unit at MOD Bovington, said: “ATDU is supporting Defence to fully realise the strengths and weaknesses of electric vehicle technology. Mobility performance, exportable power, signature and cost reduction are just some of the considerations we will explore while partnering with Electrogenic and Babcock. In understanding what could enable our forces, it also informs MOD of potential threats to be cognizant of, to enhance our strategic approach.”
This is a really exciting project for us at Electrogenic. We are immensely proud to be putting our market-leading EV technology to the ultimate test with the British Army and we are delighted to be working with Babcock. To be selected is a testament to the sophistication of our technology, and our years of experience developing Land Rover EV conversions. At the core of our offering, is the ability to have total control over every element of the electric drivetrain. As a result, our EV technology elevates performance to a whole new level – particularly when in adverse conditions and off-road. It’s the ideal fit for military vehicles.
And perhaps most exciting of all – this is exactly the same technology that our customers can have fitted by one of our growing number of partner installers around the world.
Welcome to our Christmas newsletter! And welcome to our new subscribers – we’re delighted that so many of you want to know more about our conversions and our technology. If you follow our socials or spotted us in the media you will know we have been very busy building beautiful bespoke conversions for individual customers, developing our drop-in conversion kits and a few secret projects that we can only hint at for now… We plan to keep you regularly updated in 2023 and here’s a little bit about what we have been up to in 2022.
Electrogenic Technology
This year has all been about our tech and our Powered By Electrogenic brand. We expanded our R&D facility and our 400V technology moved from R&D into full production – and it’s proving to be really exciting! Our bespoke reduction gearboxes have also hit the road, and we have radically developed our battery box manufacturing techniques.
The 400V technology means that we have the perfect solution for customers who want an “automatic” drive, or CCS “rapid” charging. It also means we can get more power into the drivetrain, making a truly magnificent Porsche 911 conversion for example, or enabling a Land Rover Defender to continue accelerating through 60mph and cruise at motorway speeds.
Bespoke reduction boxes mean we can choose gear ratios to get the perfect balance between wheel torque and top speed for a given vehicle. Sophisticated battery box construction techniques mean we can get lots of batteries into tight spaces: 93kWh inside a Land Rover Defender chassis for example. All of this means even more classic EV dreams can come true. When you wish upon a star…
We plan to update our technology pages early in the new year, so keep an eye out. If you have any tech questions let us know…
Drop-In Conversion Kits
The other big technical leap we have made in 2022 is to package our tech into sophisticated drop-in, plug and play kits. The kits are being supplied to partner installers globally for installation in their customers vehicles, and have sparked world-wide interest.
The first kits we have launched are for Land Rover Defenders, Porsche 911s and Jaguar E-Types, and there are several different kits available for each marque. Full details are on our KITS page
We announced our first USA partner in November: Xerbera, based in Dallas, Texas. They will be converting all vehicle types that we supply kits for. More partners will be announced very soon.
We will also be expanding our range of kits so let us know if there are any kits you would like us to add in 2023
Car Shows
Shows are one of my favourite things to do, because of the conversations with so many interested people. Show highlights of 2022 included:
The Low Carbon Agricultural Show, where we showcased our Land Rover Defender “agricultural” conversion kit, and discovered the high level of interest in our kits
Our first time at the Goodwood Members’ Meeting where we took a sneak preview of our kit for Series II and III Land Rovers
The amazing and beautiful Concours of Elegance at Hampton Court, with cars that simply blew our minds
And of course our regular appearances outside our Bicester Heritage unit during their regular Scrambles. If you haven’t been to one yet you’re missing out! The next one is January 8th and we’ll be there. Tickets are available here
Electrogenic In The Press
Frustratingly, the publicity around a number of our interesting conversions of 2022 was embargoed for one reason or another, but watch this space….
The press have said some very nice things about us nonetheless, and we had fun with BBC TV and radio, Times Radio and Channel 5, GQ, Magneto, Autocar, Top Gear, Porsche Post, Mog Mag and many more. Click below for some of the press we particularly loved –
The electric Citroen DS in Top Gear Rory Reid’s drive of the electric Porsche 356 for Auto Trader The perfect city car…the electric Mini in London for Hagerty
Happy New Year!
So Happy Christmas, Happy Holidays, feliz Navidad, joyeux Noel, щасливого Різдва, 圣诞快乐, ハッピークリスマス. Thanks for following along and special thank you to Small Car Big City for the festive mini photo – if you want to see the lights in London over the holidays have a look at their Christmas lights tour.
We look forward to reaching you in 2023.
Have a great new year. All the best, Steve and the Electrogenic team.
Welcome to our Christmas newsletter! For this issue we are down on the farm. We have been driving the first of our electric Land Rover conversions designed specifically for farmers through the legendary Worthy Farm mud, and we bring you news of one of our partners: Off-Road Electric.
This year, our Christmas charity has been elected by one of our customers, Nick Hooper, who has staged a one-man on-line concert for Justice Defenders. Nick’s concert can be found on YouTube here. Nick, being a lovely man as well as a celebrated composer, has written a piece of music about his electric Morris Minor, and you can hear it from minute 13:40 in the concert. It’s a catchy tune and is getting a lot of attention! Please consider making a donation to Justice Defenders, which you can do here.
So, off to Worthy Farm…
Cow-Powered Electric Land Rovers
Those of you who follow our social media will know that we have won an Innovate UK award, together with Cardiff University and Worthy Farm. The scrutiny process for an Innovate UK award is tough and we are really pleased about this recognition of our technology. Full details can be found here.
We will be building four full-instrumented electric Land Rovers for six months of trials down on the farm. The first Defender was delivered a few weeks ago, and we have been spending happy hours driving it around on cow-power. All the electricity at Worthy Farm is generated by solar power and an anaerobic digestion power plant working on the dairy farm slurry – so the Land Rovers will be using 100% green electricity. As you can see in the picture above, the cows seem pretty happy about it!
The point of the project is to gather real data about how Land Rovers are used on the farm, understand the demands on motors and batteries and whether there are extras that we can design-in, to make the vehicles better to use, as well as zero emission. The challenge is to design down to a spec, to make electric conversion kits for farmers as economical as possible. The vehicles are instrumented up to the gills, and we are beaming the data real-time to Cardiff University, who are building a computer model to predict how the electric Defenders will perform on other farms and in other environments. What have we learned so far? Pulling a loaded trailer up steep muddy hills creates tremendous voltage drops, and our electric Land Rover is really popular with the farm workers: it is fast, but most importantly its heater is instantaneous!
The spec? This one is simply a NetGain Hyper9 motor connected directly to the clutch, so all the gears and the hi/lo ratios are all intact: simple, low-cost and an exact match for the outgoing diesel engine. We have other combinations in the Works though, and will keep you in touch with what’s going on down on the farm!
Off-Road Electric
We are delighted to announce a partnership with Off-Road Electric, a company dedicated to bringing zero-emissions to working landscapes. Electrogenic is using its expertise to provide servicing and back-up to Off-Road Electric and its customers.
There are some serious work-horses in Off-Road Electric’s product range – witness our very own farm-boy Jake looking happy on a shiny new electric tractor. But to be honest, some of the vehicles make pretty good toys too..
The Lithium electric quad-bike has a bigger range than its petrol equivalent. You can sling a sheep on the back and make it back off the moor though the snow-drifts quietly, cleanly and efficiently. Go on, you know you want to…
What’s in the workshop?
This is where we make you do some of the work: figure out what vehicles these photos are from, and earn yourself a pat on the back when we publish the answers in the next newsletter.
Mystery Picture 13 – it’s our new vacuum former, ready to produce mounting panels, charger inserts, etc.
Mystery Picture 14 – the battery trays now driving around Worthy Farm!
And welcome to… Marc!”
Marc is the owner of Off-Road Electric. He runs his business in a hands-on sort of way, though we don’t know if he has personally tested the roll-bar on his quad-bikes yet!
And finally…
Our favourite link of the season is the Blob Opera. Click here for the most seasonal fun it’s possible to have on-line.
And if you are clean out of Christmas present ideas, and live locally, The Village Refill (proudly sponsored by Electrogenic) is making its last delivery tomorrow. If you don’t live locally, you will just have to buy one of Marc’s electric quad bikes.
That’s it from us for 2020, a busy year despite the challenges. Lots more electric car conversion news coming in 2021.
Electrogenic wins Innovate UK award to develop 100% electric Land Rovers with Worthy Farm and Cardiff University
Electrogenic is delighted to announce that we have won an Innovate UK Sustainable Innovation Fund award, to develop low-cost technology to convert Land Rovers to all-electric. We are partnering with Worthy Farm (host to the Glastonbury Festival) and Cardiff University to develop and test our green technology in a working environment.
A significant number of farmers and land owners in the UK are taking the initiative to decarbonise, but right now no-one makes an electric four-wheel-drive equivalent to the classic Land Rover. And as we like to say at Electrogenic: “why throw away a whole vehicle just to change the engine?”.
Over the next nine months, Electrogenic will be converting four Land Rovers to electric. The vehicles will be running around Worthy Farm doing the usual jobs, while we capture as much data as possible. This will allow Cardiff University to build a computer model to predict how the vehicles will perform on other farms and in other environments. Electrogenic’s aim is to help farmers and landowners towards net-zero by creating a cost-effective zero-emission solution for everyday transport.
Electrogenic specialises in converting classic cars to electric. Expanding this to off-road working vehicles has big benefits in helping to decarbonise land management. It also creates direct operating cost benefits: no fuel consumption when the vehicle is stationary, and vehicle maintenance reduced to just brakes and suspension. When combined with electricity from Worthy Farm’s solar and anaerobic digestion installations, the electric Land Rovers are expected to lead to significant reductions in operating costs.
Electrogenic is particularly pleased with Innovate UK’s recognition of its unique technology, which enables easy remote monitoring of all the data generated by the vehicles’ control systems. We will develop and deploy two different designs, and deploying them on a working farm will give a real insight into how to keep costs down by not over-engineering the conversion. The vehicles will be tested throughout the winter, working every day in the worst that the weather can throw at them, so we are looking forward to a lot of good, clean fun! The end product will be fully documented, cost-effective way of going off road all-electric.
And finally, a word from Innovate UK Executive Chair Dr Ian Campbell:
“In these difficult times we have seen the best of British business innovation. The pandemic is not just a health emergency but one that impacts society and the economy.
“Electrogenic, along with every initiative Innovate UK has supported through this fund, is an important step forward in driving sustainable economic development. Each one is also helping to realise the ambitions of hard-working people.”
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