Jan 2024 - Are Electric Vehicles the way forward?

As the world attempts to combat climate change by reducing harmful emissions, electric cars have been at the forefront of any plans. In fact, thanks to the interesting research from Zapmap, there were roughly 950,000 fully electric cars on the UK road network as of November 2023. Over 265,000 battery-electric cars were registered in 2022, signifying a 40% growth on 2021. Although it’s a sensitive subject amongst petrol-heads, it’s clear to see that the transition to EV cars is well underway.

Although the ban on the sale of petrol and diesel cars has been delayed from 2030 to 2035, newly registered cars will soon need to produce zero emissions. Therefore, we wanted to look into the benefits of electric cars and what it will mean for the UK car modification industry.

Maxton Tesla Model 3

How do electric vehicles work?

Cars powered exclusively by an electric motor are classed as electric vehicles, or EVs for short. Diesel or petrol cars, that we are all more used to, are powered by the internal engine, the gearbox and a tank of fuel. Meanwhile, an EV’s powertrain consists of a battery, DC/DC converter which converts energy to the correct voltage, and an electric traction motor which uses the power to drive the vehicle’s wheels.

The main metric of measuring an electric vehicle’s efficiency is the miles per kilowatt hour, abbreviated to kWh, which indicates how far the vehicle can travel on a fully charged battery. Think of this as the equivalent to miles per hour (MPH).

What are the benefits of electric cars?

Of course, I know a lot of you real enthusiasts reading this will be thinking “why would I want an electric car?” or “electric cars are so boring to drive!”. I completely understand, given that they don’t create that same roaring audio of a standard engine or the same sense of connection between driver and machine from a manual gearbox.

However, EV’s can be fun in their own way. The instant response to acceleration can be a thrill, and also handy when merging onto motorways. The weight distribution is typically heavier and lower, due to the positioning of the batteries, on EV’s which can result in improved handling on corners.

Modifying your electric car

After years of making modifications, both small and large, to petrol and diesel cars to increase speed, improve performance or enhance handling, you car-modifiers are likely wondering (or worrying) how far you can take an electric vehicle. Fortunately, there are multiple ways to enhance your EV.

By increasing the capacity of the battery, the car will run at a higher voltage, thus releasing more power. Although not an easy job, there are plenty of experts in handling electric vehicles.

As usual, wheels and tyres can also be modified to provide the car with boosted aesthetics, while also improving some performance. As mentioned previously, the instant torque delivery on EV’s require tyres that can handle the immediate power.

EV’s aren’t a massive threat to those involved in the market of aesthetic upgrades, compared to performance-based modifiers anyway. Here at Maxton Design, we’re lucky that the insides of the car don’t make a massive impact to what we’re about.

Of course, more care must be taken when installing our parts, as more cables mean more risk of drilling through something important. Entrust our qualified fitters to take care of the dirty work at our fitting bay in Leeds.

Maxtonizing your EV

Check the links below to some of the kits we offer for electric vehicles:

EV Maxton Design Styling Kits