mod@tech

While the general public might have its issues with modern electric vehicles–range anxiety, charging infrastructure, and the mining of lithium for the batteries among them – gearheads who aren’t blind to the potential of all that torque right off the line seem to have one concern above all of those: Can EVs be hot-rodded and made to perform better? As with any vehicle, regardless of the energy source that turns the wheels, of course they can, but it’s the tradeoffs to watch out for.

As the Specialty Equipment Market Association recently noted, the EV aftermarket has steadily grown over the last few years, to the point where SEMA Electrified, a sort of show-within-a-show at the annual SEMA Show in Las Vegas, now features several dozen exhibitors across 21,000 square feet of the convention center floor. “Many folks who were new to the electric market were both surprised and excited to see how far this segment of the industry had progressed,” said Luis Morales, SEMA’s director of vehicle technology.

One SEMA Electrified exhibitor, Neil Tjin, likened the growing EV aftermarket to an earlier scene that rapidly took off. “I feel like where we were in the Nineties with Hondas and four-bangers and all that,” he said. “It’s all still so new that I heard so many questions about batteries, wiring, and what the EV motors will fit in.”

He noted that when he took a customized Ford Mustang Mach-E to SEMA in 2021, EVs still felt too new for the aftermarket crowd, but that changed last year when he displayed his customized Ford Lightning. “People are getting more used to EVs there,” he said.

How are EVs being modded?

If the exhibitors in the SEMA Electrified display are any indication of overall trends in the EV aftermarket scene, then a significant portion of that scene is dedicated to electromodding older vehicles either via individual components such as motors and controllers, conversion kits, or conversion services offering turnkey vehicles. One exhibitor, Switch Vehicles, even built an entire EV kit car from the ground up during the weeklong SEMA show.

For newer EVs, however, exhibitors focused more on charging solutions, service equipment, testing equipment, safety tools, and accessories. Tjin’s Lightning is a good example of the focus on accessories: The brand-new truck with less than 100 miles on it was painted green and fitted with a Ford accessory electronic bed cover, a custom grille and headlamps, Air Design roof and bed spoilers, a Thule bike rack and awning, Recaro seats, ARB air compressor, PowerTank air compressor, an electric grill, and even an ARB refrigerator and freezer. Underneath, Tjin had Baer six-piston front and rear brakes installed along with a Custom Air Lift suspension to drop the pickup over its 24-inch Vossen wheels and 295/45-24 Nitto Recon Grappler AT tires. The idea, Tjin said, was to build “the ultimate EV vehicle that does it all.”

Similarly, a scan of the leading Tesla aftermarket parts sources shows that hard parts for Teslas – beyond carbon-fiber trim pieces and other dress-up or utility accessories – are largely relegated to brake kits and suspension packages. The Nissan Leaf – at one point the all-time top-selling electric vehicle and a car that benefits from parts-bin sharing with other Nissan vehicles – sees little aftermarket support beyond floormats and charging adapters.

Wrenching, coding, or both?

Nevertheless, DIYers are beginning to find ways to juice the drivetrains of the EVs that have his the market over the last dozen years or so. Daniel Öster, better known as Dala from the YouTube channel Dala’s EV Repair, is one example. After a series of higher-capacity battery upgrades on Nissan Leafs, BMW i3s, and other EVs, he started to explore inverter swaps as a way of extracting more power out of older 80kW (110hp) Leaf drivetrains. The physical aspect of the swap is simple, with inverters from later Leafs bolting directly in place of their earlier counterparts, though the coding necessary to unlock the newer inverters’ full potential can be daunting. Still, the results are nothing to sneeze at, with output of up to 160 kilowatts (215 horsepower) possible. Öster discovered that even a 110kW (148hp) inverter swap cuts roughly a second and a half off of a Leaf’s 0-60 time.

Component upgrades like Öster’s inverter swap aren’t the only way for hotrodders to modify an EV for power and speed. Companies like Ingenext offer products like the Ghost that Öster describes as “man-in-the-middle CAN attack messages,” while other EVs like the Volkswagen eGolf can output more power with re-flashed computers.

One could also just pay for increased performance via a touchscreen. Tesla offers performance upgrades via software upgrades enabled by over-the-air updates and purchases. The Acceleration Boost upgrade, for instance, drops a Model 3’s 0-60 time from 4.2 to 3.7 seconds and costs $2,000. Dodge’s Tim Kuniskis has said that the brand will similarly offer tiered over-the-air performance upgrades for its upcoming performance EV and that the upgrades will be tied to the car’s VIN in an effort to lock out third-party tuners.

So what are the drawbacks?

Range, mainly. “Your battery might run out quicker due to all the improved acceleration and burnouts,” Öster noted.

Even Tjin, who left the drivetrains and electrical systems on both his Lightning and Mach-E entirely stock, has had to contend with reduced range due to his modifications. On the drive back home from SEMA, the 300-mile range that he anticipated from a perfectly stock Lightning (the EPA rates the Lightning’s range at 230 miles with the standard battery pack and 320 miles with the extended range battery pack) dwindled to 170 miles from a full charge thanks to the extra 1,000 pounds of accessories and the larger wheels and tires. He’s since shed a number of accessories from its display state so that it’s only carrying an additional 500 pounds or so and has seen the truck’s range on a full charge increase to about 250 miles. “It’s not terrible,” he said. “But the wheels and the weight do play a factor.”

Despite his likening it to the Nineties import tuner scene, Tjin said he sees EVs taking a different trajectory. “I see EVs right now as wheels, tires, sublte upgrades, maybe a wrap, but as builders, owners, shops and manufactures get more educated on EVs, I see them becoming more full builds,” he said. “The EV space also offers something different than the ’90s, because a lot of old school cars are undergoing EV swaps, which will give the EV space a huge demographic of builders and cars.”

Öster hasn’t discussed specific range limitations due to his modifications, but then again, he’s also upgraded from the stock 24 kWh battery to a later 62kWh unit and has started to explore how to adapt the Leaf’s original CHAdeMO fast charger with the increasingly more common CCS type fast charger using i3 components.

Indeed, maybe the future of EV modification isn’t as focused on power and speed as it is on extending range and adapting newer EV technology to older cars. After all, maybe all that torque right off the line is enough.

Remember the early days of the new-generation Charger, its 2006 launch, and how much grumping people did over the idea that it wasn’t a coupe? Today, the modern four-door Charger has lasted longer than the original B-body coupes it shares a name with. It’s such a quaint argument today, in the face of its imminent demise.

The Widebody-equipped Charger Scat Pack, its 485-hp 6.4-liter naturally aspirated V-8, and its 3.5-inch-wider body have been around for a few years now. It’s changed little: 0-60 times in 4.3 seconds, 12.4-second quarter miles, an eye-opening .98 g on the skidpad. The extra width allows 305/35ZR20 Pirelli tires and 20 x 11-inch forged-aluminum wheels on all corners, along with six-piston Brembo front brakes (with two-piece front rotors) and suspension upgrades like Bilstein three-mode adaptive damping. The power is more than enough to put traffic in your mirror when the light goes green — even a gentle toe on the throttle will send you hurtling forth — and cornering is sharp enough to get around Grandma Ciera and her timid attempt at merging onto an on-ramp. The mandatory eight-speed automatic, left to its own devices, is happy to hold gears under WOT — but will spring through the first half of its gearset in seconds under gentler conditions.

Photo by Jeff Koch

It’s everything you’ve come to expect from a Charger. Comfy seats designed for large American frames. Brembo brakes that stop you dead from freeway speeds while behaving themselves around town. An exhaust note that’s actually pretty mellow at idle — unless you’re standing outside the car, like your neighbors who have suddenly stopped talking to you. The 121-inch wheelbase allows a near-limo-like ride over all but the most truck-rutted pavement (hello, SR95 South between Baghdad, Arizona, and Kingman, Arizona), and while you never don’t feel its heft in the corners, the notion that a car so big can feel so nimble remains a pleasure — and not a little astonishing.

It hasn’t changed much, maybe in part because it hasn’t had to. What’s here is terrific fun. Also, there are no other competitive domestic sedans to speak of: Ford stopped spitting out Crown Vics for grandpa in 2009 (and for the police in 2011), and the Holden-built Chevrolet SS split town half a decade ago. Dodge’s Charger — any Charger, from the basest V-6 to the hairiest Hellcat Redeye — is very much the last of its breed. Whether it’s any good or not is almost beside the point; luckily for the car-buying public, it is. The Dodge Charger Scat Pack Widebody Hemi Orange edition is a fun piece of four-wheeled hooliganism, backed by a payment plan and a warranty booklet.

Photo by Jeff Koch

Our Scat Pack Charger started at $47,385 — less than $100 per horsepower — but was optioned up to $64,635 including the $1,595 delivery charge. How? The Scat Pack Widebody package is $5,995 (pricing unchanged since the package launched on Challengers in 2018, so… bargain?) and seems worth it; other Chargers look base and naked and narrow and tall without the flares. Pirelli tires are included in the package, but our test car’s three-season P-Zero 305/35ZR20 rubber is an additional $695 — they felt great when the sun was out, but we felt slightly adrift driving in the rain as we hydroplaned our way out of town. The worthwhile Plus Group gathers a bunch of interior-convenience options, from ventilated seats to a tilt-and-telescoping steering column, for $2,095. Adding $1,595 for the Carbon/ Suede interior package (just a suede headliner and a handful of “Real Carbon Fiber interior accents”) remains a less convincing way to spend your cash. The $890 Driver Convenience group, complementing the HID headlamps with a set of locking lug nuts, just sounds silly. For $995, the Navigation and Travel Package also includes five years of Sirius/XM, and we’d have to have a car without the 19-speaker Harmon Kardon Audio Group to determine whether it’s worth the $1,795 asking price. Battleship grey paint — sorry, “Smoke Show” — was $95. (Really?) A bunch of the spiffs listed in the Hemi Orange package already came in the Plus Group: ventilated power front chairs with two-way lumbar for the passenger, heated rear seats, and rear-seat armrests with illuminated cupholders from the Plus group. You’re essentially paying $1,500 for orange stitching and accents, plus the over-the-top stripe. It’s not numbered — the big 392 on the instrument panel and front fenders doesn’t count. Will Dodge build few enough that it’s worth it, either now, or 30 years down the road through the Hemmings classifieds?

Photo by Jeff Koch

It may not be a bad play. I’ve gotten more thumbs-up in this pavement-grey Charger than I did in either of the two poppin’ blue Hellcat-powered Chargers I had previously. All of those thumbs were attached to 50-plus-year-old hands, save for one 12-year-old boy who called this Dodge his dream car. Are they aware it’s going away? Are they responding to some sort of a statement that, in the face of imminent automotive electrification, I’m throwing my weight behind good old-fashioned dino-juice power? Do they know? Do they care? Or did the old duffs throwing thumbs-up simply like the orange stripe and badges?

The shame of it all is that the Charger isn’t disappearing because it’s not selling well. Rather, as Stellantis (Dodge’s latest international conglomerate of an owner) keeps its eye on 2030 — just seven years away now — when new internal-combustion cars will stop selling in Europe, it needs to develop electric-powered vehicles and get them ready for prime-time. Presumably the assembly process isn’t flexible enough to handle both electric and internal-combustion cars on the same line, or else surely these cash cows would continue until they were legislated out of existence.

Regardless, all of the angry message-board posts and hand-wringing over the Charger being a sedan is suddenly a little beside the point when 1) there’s a Challenger to suit the two-door need, 2) Dodge somehow did just fine with a Charger sedan, and 3) they’re both going away at the end of the model year. Shame it took killing the platform to do it.

A 1912 Simplex Torpedo Tourer blew all other Bonhams’ sales out of the water at the Scottsdale Auction on Saturday, January 28. Hammering down at $4,845,000, the explosive auction doubled its initial dollar estimate and set a world record for brass era vehicle sales.

The car represents the pinnacle of early U.S. sports cars with its original coachwork and dramatic styling. Its performance, including a ground-pounding 50-hp, surpassed most vehicles even decades later. It was first owned by legendary pre-war American sportswoman Eleonora Sears, one of the first women to drive a race car and the first woman to contest a speeding ticket. During her 25-plus year ownership and into the present day, the history-rich Simplex is held in high regard by collectors.

The five-passenger Eleonora Sears 1912 Simplex Torpedo Tourer was the top lot to cross the auction block at Scottsdale. Nipping at its tires as the top supercar sale was a 2006 Maserati MC12 Corse, the ultimate track day car modeled after the GT1 race car and one of only a dozen Corse models produced. Barely touched since it rolled out of the factory, this like-new 123-mile example sped away at full-throttle for $4.1 million.

1957 Chrysler Ghia Super Dart 400 concept carMatthew Litwin

The late John White’s prestigious Ramshead Collection also captivated Bonhams bidders, collectively selling for $3 million. Commanding attention in the collection amongst three other mid-century Chrysler Ghia show cars was a futuristic one-off 1957 Super Dart 400 concept. The fin-adorned four-wheeled space shuttle brought $819,000, while its stablemates, a 1954 Chrysler Ghia GS-1 Coupe (one of five survivors) and a 1962 Chrysler Ghia L6.4 sold for $802,000 and $577,000 respectively.

1953 Siata 208S SpiderMatthew Litwin

Another highlight from the weekend’s auction was a 1953 Siata 208S Spider sporting a superb factory-correct restoration, which earned numerous class awards at prestigious events such as the Pebble Beach and Amelia Island Concours. This stellar example of the revered Etceterini classic, the 18^th of just 33 Motto-bodied Spiders built, sold for $1.5 million.

The above sales set off Bonhams’ U.S. season opener at Scottsdale with a bang. A total of $30 million in auction earnings crossed the block, with 84% of the 140 lots sold, 97% by value. “This has been a promising start to the year,” said Rupert Banner, Bonhams Group Motoring Director, “We were proud to have presented such a strong sale, of such high-quality material spanning pre-war material to supercar content.”