Other considerations beyond the actual job of converting.

April 14, 2022, 09:42:11 AM

What's the deal with registering the change with DVLA, changes of taxation class (if applicable) and future MOTs etc. if you were to convert a Mk2 (or other classic) to Electric?

I know some people have had enough trouble with a straightforward engine swap.

Now I know the Tax band for Golfs is fixed on the old pre-2001 rules, one price for under 1600cc a higher price for over. Whereas newer vehicles have a tax band based on emission output - or some such random number generator as it sometimes appears.

I assume because of the age of the vehicle you'd still pay the full road tax and some kind of conversion would be required to match the power output to an equivalent cc.

Now, clean air zones, where you may be free or reduced for zero-emission vehicles I wonder how many hoops you need to jump through to get an exemption for a converted vehicle. And would you need to apply independently to each operator, London, Birmingham, Bristol etc. ? My understanding of how these zones are run is that you may well need to apply to each and could end up allowed in London, but not Bristol if they decided that was how they wanted to play.

And finally, historic vehicle classification. We're not there yet, my Golf has only just reached 31 but the earliest Mk2s (1984) are only 2 years away now. My understanding is if a vehicle has been modified then you cannot apply for this so will need to continue to pay tax and get your car MOTed, I think there's a cut off year, something like if you can prove the modification was done before 1995 you can still apply.

Re: Other considerations beyond the actual job of converting.

Reply #1 – April 15, 2022, 09:51:06 PM

It appears to be a bit of a minefield, with inconsistency from DVLA. There's quite a lengthy discussion on this on openinverter.org.

Re: Other considerations beyond the actual job of converting.

Reply #2 – November 19, 2022, 05:18:23 PM

I've converted like over 5 years ago a Suzuki Swift MK2 to EV and it was a giant hassle. Essentially, had to re-register the car again as an EV(with tons of pics, receipts of the parts used etc). The car had to be inspected by VOSA for whatever reason. Can't remember exactly all the steps

Now, all this hassle was because back home, EV conversions are illegal unless done through a company(which usually charges over 10k euros). So I've used the loophole "if it's registered as an EV somewhere in EU, you got to register it as an EV here too" in order to defeat the government back home. Things we do for our moms...

Don't know how things are now to be honest