Rich, owner of the electrified garage and YouTube channel Rich Rebuilds, used two old Tesla Model S to make a brand new electric car.
The new customized electric car has the body of a 2018 P75D but the battery and powertrain of a Model S P100D, which is currently the fastest Tesla with a 0 to 60 mph acceleration of 2.6 seconds.
People following EVs or cars, in general, know it is a near-impossible task to pull off something like this. That is because Tesla follows an Apple-like approach when it comes to the “right-to-repair” initiative.
It is not easy to access mechanical parts of a Tesla EV, and therefore, these cars are difficult to repair. The electrified garage is among a handful of places that can repair an electric car, including Teslas.
So here’s how they swapped one Model S drivetrain for a faster one.
Two Old Tesla Model S Can Make A New Electric Car
Right from the start, Rich informs his viewers that the drivetrain swap isn’t what his company usually does. He accepted the request because the customer already had two Tesla Model S, one of them was almost wrecked, and the customer had a lot of money for additional spare parts.
The team at Electrified Garage started the swap-process by removing the battery and the electric motor from the P100D. Compared to the old P75D, the newer electric motor in Model S is huge.
The team separated the electric powertrain from P100D and installed it in P75D; however, it wasn’t as easy as it sounds. The entire drivetrain unit and the junction box had to be swapped into the P75D.
Along with that, the wiring harness at the back of the car also had to be redone. So the cooling system had to be reworked to function. I mentioned that Model S P100D has a big motor, so instead of oil-cooling, two hoses go directly inside the engine to cool it down.
Figuring out how the software inside the new motor swapped Tesla would work was also a difficult task. Chad from Electrified Garage explained that Tesla doesn’t allow one-off builds.
Meaning the car software won’t recognize the Model S P75D with the drivetrain of a P100D. Therefore, he used the existing configuration, an existing code available from Tesla.
After several rounds of tweaks, as shown in the video, the new motor swapped Tesla Model S 75D was ready.
Motor Swapped Tesla Model S
Rich tested the new Tesla Model S, which the team has built and was genuinely surprised at how well it performed. The car had all the functions running without any issues.
The motor swapped Model S had features of the P100D, including Ludricous and Ludicrous+ mode. It even supported Tesla Supercharging.
In the end, the owner of the Model S did manage to save a lot of money by doing a motor swap instead of buying a new one.
Would you be interested in a one-off Tesla EV like this one?
