Project XJ8
A customer based within the London ULEZ & congestion charge zone, approached us to convert their 2001 Jaguar XJ8 into a fully electric vehicle.
We discussed the client's requirements and settled on a Nissan Leaf based conversion for this project as the perfect balance of cost to desired performance.
The project involved a large amount of design and fabrication to fit the Leaf's electric drivetrain into the old chassis of the Jaguar.
The electric drivetrain for Project XJ8 was taken from a 2013 Nissan Leaf.
Custom brackets were designed and made in house to securely fit the motor, inverter and charge unit, in place of the original Jaguar V8 engine.
By changing the arrangement of the Leaf drivetrain components, we were able to keep the whole power unit low down between the chassis rails.
This means we can mount half of the redesigned Leaf battery pack up front, therefore, keeping the weight distribution of the Jaguar as close to original spec as possible.
Here you can see the Nissan Leaf's 24KWh battery pack which has been split into two- this is the front half. The layout of the cells in the photo has been redesigned to fit snugly into a bespoke battery case which itself has been engineered (by our resident CAD engineer Joe, with the use of scanning and CAD tools) to fit into the space above the drivetrain components in the engine bay.
We think it's important to enjoy your work, but luckily it is frowned upon to shut colleagues in car boots while they're taking measurements! Jokinig to one side- the other half of the battery pack lives here where the fuel tank used to be.
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