A $5,600 Electric Makeover for Old Diesel Cars - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-07-31/there-s-a-5-600-electric-moonshot-for-your-combustion-clunker <comment><USER2> In the early 2000s there was an Italian company in Emilia Romagna doing these combustion → electric makeovers on an industrial scale. Their average customers where municipalities and large businesses (airports, for example) converting their existing fleet of ICE cars into electric vehicles.

They lost most of their businesses around 2012 when Italy passed a bill making all these converted cars not roadworthy without an explicit permit from the original manufacturer, permits that very rarely where granted. (That law got partially overturned in 2017, but the FUD and the chilling effect remain today.)

Source: a friend of mine being laid off by that firm in 2012 + [http://mondoelettrico.blogspot.com/search?q=retrofit](http://mondoelettrico.blogspot.com/search?q=retrofit)

<comment><USER3> I don't often believe conspiracies, but I cannot understand these sort of things... what was the justification for such law? security? Industry protectionism?

<comment><USER4> Safety is a legitimate reason, unless they were doing the full-blown car certification, including crash-testing. I'm definitely in favor of giving green technology a pass to some extent, but it would be hard to figure out exactly to which extent. Unregulated cars were deathtraps.

<comment><USER5> It's gonna be very hard unintentionally build a deathtrap if you're starting with a modern car and not going out of your way to do dumb things that make it likely to go up in flames.

Furthermore, in the case of an EV conversion you can basically just make sure the EV power-train does not occupy physical space that the ICE power-train did not and your crumple zones and airbags will work fine.

Edit:

Making batteries that don't catch on fire is a solved problem. Getting those electrons to the motor without starting a fire is a solved problem. You really only get fires when you're trying to push the performance envelope which is generally a low priority for commercial conversions.

Cars are not hyper-complicated non-deterministic black boxes. It is possible to modify them without causing unforeseen consequences. Just because you may personally lack the expertise to understand how the systems interact does not mean that nobody can understand it. A qualified engineer with an automotive background should have no problem creating an EV conversion that is every bit as safe as the base vehicle though it will probably be slightly less efficient in terms of materials and labor usage than a conversion for the same vehicle designed by an OEM team for manufacture at scale. The OEMs don't have people that are magically smarter, or different laws of physics if anything they will have a harder time engineering an equivalently performing system because they have many more constraints to optimize for than a conversion company.

<comment><USER6> If it was me, I'd be worrying about fire, from batteries and wiring.

<comment><USER7> Exactly it can easily turn into a ford pinto due to insufficient fire protection

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is exactly the kind of thing I wanted to do for common light goods vehicles in the UK - the Vivaro and Trafic vans. They are great apart from the gearboxes, and of course the engines are ICE. You could replace the engine and gearbox with a motor, and there's a HUGE amount of space under the van for a battery pack to give it a good range, with strong mounting onto the chassis possible. Lots of these vans do very little mileage, just working locally - think of the pollution that would be reduced in London, for instance.

The problem was that I priced it up, and it would cost about £20k for a conversion, which obviously isn't going to happen. If you could get it do say £5-7k, then anyone with one of these who's faced with a new gearbox being needed, or needs the injectors replaced and they're seized in place because the scuttle under the windscreen leaks water onto the engine (which can be a £2k + bill) might think it was worth doing.

However, I'm also sure that the insurance situation would need looking at - it's effectively a different vehicle and you've definitely had it modified.

Another one of my pie-in-the-sky ideas, but I'm sure it'll be financially doable at some point, and given that the Vivaro had a 12-year model lifespan and didn't suffer from rust, there are plenty of them about.

<comment><USER9> Why bother replacing the gearbox?

<comment><USER5> Because an automatic transmission is just a waste with the power "curve" of an electric motor. An automatic transmission basically replaces the function of a clutch by letting you put power to the wheels at super low rpm while keeping the engine spinning a decent rpm. An electric motor does not need this, it is just wasted energy in that application.

Some sort of direct gearbox with multiple speeds would probably be useful in a work vehicle application. However, one from an automotive application would be totally overkill because an electric motor's power band is too wide to need more than two or maybe three widely spaced gears. A purpose built high/low gearbox (like on a drill) would be better. Sure, you can always spec a bigger motor but that has trade-offs.

Most early EV conversions had fairly low horsepower motors and retained the manual transmission and used it to avoid overheating the motor when leaving a stop wide open (which you did most of the time when you only had ~50hp). Obviously that's a non-issue with the higher power motors that are commonly used today.

<comment><USER9> Wouldn't the advantage of being able to cruise at low RPMs massively increase range with the same size battery?

And wouldn't _not_ replacing the transmission result in lower costs for the retrofit? If the upfront cost of a retrofit is the major hurdle preventing adoption, then reducing complexity of the retrofit would seem more important than reducing overall complexity of the drivetrain... particularly since you'll still be better-than-parity complexity following an electric retrofit.

I understand the non-trivial power-loss of connecting a motor to a transmission, but to me this seems like an acceptable trade... particularly as someone who enjoys rowing through my gears.

<comment><USER5> >Wouldn't the advantage of being able to cruise at low RPMs massively increase range with the same size battery?

Not really. An electric motor does not lose much efficiency with increased speed.

>And wouldn't not replacing the transmission result in lower costs for the retrofit?

In a longitudinal application it would be cost neutral to retain a manual transmission.

In any application it would be dumb to keep an automatic transmission. In a longitudinal application replacing any transmission is as easy as a couple carrier bearings and a different drive shaft.

If I was really trying to cut cost but perform a large volume of conversions on FWD cars with transverse mounted engines (i.e. basically all FWD cars) and automatic transmissions I'd keep the transmission housings but replace all the clutches, planetaries, etc with a single solid shaft. While machined parts are expensive they're still cheaper than coming up with another solution for the differential.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I seriously gave thought to doing this exact thing. The problems I was uncomfortable with:

1\. when you are working with multiple cars+models it is much harder to scale, every car is its own challenge, as such the operation is likely to remain small

2\. customers might expect the rest of the car to also improve which would be problematic when you have to source parts or fix 10 to 15 year old car models

3\. every new model you work with is a bit of an experiment, you don't really know whether your configuration is going to cause problems until it does; what worked with another model might not work with this one, in the worst case scenario, people get hurt and you're to blame; if you read any of the 100s of EV conversion blogs, they never get it right the first time round, there's always something that needs rethinking

As a side note, you don't have to buy anything from Tesla to do this. You can furnish yourself a whole package relatively easily from various suppliers. People were doing it before Tesla was even a thing.

<comment><USER11> Some guys on France have picked a set of cars using the same frame to design a single kit.

<comment><USER12> It's easier because all of the French car brands are basically the same with the same frame with a different badge and bodywork.

<comment><USER13> I thought that Renault has it different than Peugeot/Citroen. The former has common parts with Nissan and the latter with Opel (also part of PSA) and Fiat. Am I wrong?

<comment><USER14> Opel still shares no platforms with the french cars, it is all GM. The first car based on the PSA platform is planned to come out next year.

<comment><USER15> The grandland shares platform, it's actually built in the same factory than the 3008. It comes from an accord previous to the acquisition of Opel from psa

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> From the company pitch: _Electrification of thermal city cars : we replace the thermal engine by electrical engine and batteries (100km of autonomy and 110km /h of maximum speed). This autonomy is a engaged choice to avoid oversized car capabilities and avoid reproducing the opulence on lithium-cobalt that we have on oil._[1]

Ah, the good old days of "if you want an electric car, you have to _suffer_."

This isn't really a company yet, it's a pitch for funding.

It's perfectly possible to convert existing cars to electric drive. Conversion kits exist.[2] Those guys have conversion kits for most early VWs powered by the little four-cylinder opposed engine. Cost is about $17,000 with battery. Which is a used Tesla pack. Unclear why this new conversion is so much cheaper, unless it doesn't include the battery. Other sellers have conversion kits for other vehicles.

The usual result is a rather heavy car with limited range. Also, conversions tend to leave the transmission in the power train and use a DC motor, which is obsolete electric car technology.

[1] [https://solarimpulse.com/companies/transition- one](https://solarimpulse.com/companies/transition-one)

[2] [https://www.evwest.com/catalog/index.php?cPath=40](https://www.evwest.com/catalog/index.php?cPath=40)

<comment><USER10> 100km range fits the commuting needs of 95% of the people in western Europe.

In any case, the target demographic is likely not wealthy, so for them, less range for less money would be ideal. Plus, the smaller the battery the easier it is to fit, meaning less potential problems later on. Particularly important because these cars won't be crash tested.

<comment><USER17> ,,100km range fits the commuting needs of 95% of the people in western Europe''

More like 95% of commuting needs of 95% of the people.

As local transport is quite good, vacation is the more important and harder to substitute part of the car need.

<comment><USER18> Vacation is the trivially substitutable part of car needs: Just rent a car.

<comment><USER19> I don't understand why this needs to be said, and I agree with you. There's no point owning a car that is more expensive only because if has to face specific conditions one or two days a year.

Renting a car seems to be the obvious solution, but there might be two reasons why it doesn't appear to be so for most people. The first one is that in general car drivers don't know how much they pay per day or per kilometer driven. Then renting a car seems to be expensive. The second reason is that cars have an almost religious status in our society.

It reminds me of Ath, a city in Belgium that has a yearly event where the people go through the streets wearing huge statues. This tradition can be found in other countries as well: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gigantes_y_cabezudos](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gigantes_y_cabezudos). Car culture looks like a big daily procession to honour the values of power, speed, and freedom from physical limitations. No wonder some people can't leave their symbolic attire, and instead want to own it, the way they own their daily clothes.

<comment><USER20> It's even worse than that: in countries where caravans are popular (which is most of Europe), most people buy heavy and overpowered cars just to be able to tow their caravan twice a year.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> > The whole pack, bought from a Tesla Inc. parts reseller, weighs 120 > kilograms (265 pounds).

and here lies the problem. Tesla doesnt (afaik, please correct me) sell their car batteries, those are second hand post crash written off car packs(1). You cant build a scalable (planned 4000 cars a year) business around digging rare parts out of the trash.

(1) going rate for used Model 3 pack is ~$12K with maybe 10-20 available at any time in whole world

<comment><USER22> >You cant build a scalable (planned 4000 cars a year) business around digging rare parts out of the trash

No, but it should bootstrap you enough capital to be able to do your own R&D and develop your own battery pack, or at the very least enter into talks with manufacturers to lease existing battery packs for your business.

Also, Tesla is making ~5,000 cars a week. Of those 5,000, 77 have to crash and be written off (1.5%) for there to be enough battery packs for 4,000 cars a year. Not considering the 100,000+ Teslas on the road already.

<comment><USER23> 4000 * 5600 = 22.4 million.

This is revenue, so rent, parts and labor will significantly reduce that. I'm not sure how this would result in a good R&D budget.

As for getting supplies from written off Teslas, it doesn't take into account location. What percentage is in Europe within a economically viable shipping distance?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I have recently seen this: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4CPBHj0UQk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4CPBHj0UQk) a garage in California specialized in changing oldtimer engines to electric engines. They seem to be booked out months in advance.

Another company I have heard from is doing this specifically for supercars, so special Porsches etc.

I feel like both the margin and the clientele would be much more fun to deal with, as with this approach (as many have mentioned) the scaling will be the difficult part.

<comment><USER25> For anyone interested, the "garage in California" is EV West. Here are three more in-depth videos from the wonderful Fully Charged channel about EV West:

EV West - in general: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOx5uCufB2Q](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOx5uCufB2Q)

EV West - BMW M3: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHaqiWcWSIc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHaqiWcWSIc)

EV West - VW Bus: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLRAQu0b8-o](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLRAQu0b8-o)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I aplaude the initiative, but I am skeptical about this.

To convert and ICE car to electric you'll need a battery pack, BCM, inverter, motor, charger, heater core and mounting hardware at minimum. Even if they source all parts from the used market, I doubt they can do it for €5k.

Then there is the practical part. Converting an ICE car to an electric drivetrain messes with weight distribution and crash safety. In most EU countries you'll need to do a full technical inspection to get the car road legal again (even if you used a certified kit). Air conditioning and most gauges in the dashboard will no longer work. And on most modern cars they'll need to do some serious software hacking to get the body control modules to accept the fact that there is no ECU anymore to talk to.

<comment><USER26> > I doubt they can do it for €5k.

They don't. They do it for 8300€, of which 3300€ are (re)funded by the French tax office/Ecology Ministry. So it's 5000€ from the driver's pocket (in the end).

See [https://www.service- public.fr/particuliers/vosdroits/F32487](https://www.service- public.fr/particuliers/vosdroits/F32487) (in French)

<comment><USER27> It seems to use the conversion bonus where you discard an old fossil car to a new more efficient one, it can't use the EV bonus because it needs to be a new car, in this case this is a 5000€ bonus, if the law was changed to accept conversion it would make the whole thing free.

[https://www.service- public.fr/particuliers/vosdroits/F34014](https://www.service- public.fr/particuliers/vosdroits/F34014)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Whether or not this particular venture is successful, retrofitting existing operational cars - especially ones that have a dead engine - is a big part of what we should be doing.

Many families have two vehicles, one of which is primarily used for local tasks. These are ideal to convert if the rest of the car will last for another 5ish years.

Meanwhile, public transport, biking lanes, and other options should continue to be developed. There is never just one solution.

</comment><comment><USER29> The economics of this are pretty attractive. A VW Golf Diesel would do about 70-80K km for the amount of fuel that about 5000 euros buys. This is assuming 4.8 litres for 100km and a (current) price of 1.38 euro per litre in Germany. I pulled both numbers using Google. In the US Diesel would be cheaper (79 cents according to Google). I'm guessing this excludes taxes that may apply in some states though. But assuming that's correct, in the US, the same amount buys you about 150K km of range.

So, a conversion like this starts earning itself back well within the lifespan of the batteries either way based just on fuel cost savings. Of course if you drive an older Diesel, it would be unlikely to actually last another 150K or have anywhere near the fuel economy of a newer model. Additionally, older cars tend to need expensive maintenance on their engines to keep on going before they finally become to expensive to repair.

Of course the problem is going to be finding batteries. I'd expect this kind of stuff to quickly go from a novelty to being a very common thing. This may drive up prices and limit availability. However, with second hand batteries the value proposition might be quite good still.

<comment><USER30> Electricity is not free, though, so you would have to subtract the price for electricity from your consideration.

<comment><USER29> True. A number I've heard for Teslas is 4.4 mile per kwh. So, a 150km is about 100000 miles (nice round number) and lets round down the milage to 4. So we are talking 25000 kwh. It depends on where you get your power of course or whether you have your own solar panels but at 10 cents per kwh that would be 2500$

So about half the price. That would be on the expensive side and things get more interesting if you have access to cheaper sources of energy. E.g. bids for solar power plants are below 2 cents now so that cuts it down to about 500$.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> My father in law converted an old Chrysler to electric some 10 years ago. It worked great but the car was so old that nobody in the family wanted to drive it.

Here is a picture: [https://imgur.com/40ZymUP](https://imgur.com/40ZymUP)

He then took the electric parts out to convert a small chevy car but then died before starting that project.

<comment><USER32> That's a handsome car, from what is visible in the photo. I would drive it.

<comment><USER31> It's not that it was ugly, but it was very uncomfortable, everything creaked, the wheel was super hard, no AC, etc...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I got into the whole idea of electric conversion a few months ago and came to the conclusion that it's really just not worth the time and money, unless you have a classic car that you really want to make electric just for fun.

There's some great videos out there explaining the process and EVWest sells kits for older VWs and Porches (the ones with the simplest motors and drive trains). [https://evwest.com/catalog/](https://evwest.com/catalog/)

I'd love to swap the engine out of my 2007 Mini Cooper soft-top for an electric motor and zip around town silently with it, but unless I was willing to both spend the equivalent of a new car _and_ do all the work myself, it'll never happen.

There really aren't any electric convertibles out there though, so it's tempting.

<comment><USER16> As a fun project, it makes more sense.

It will make even more sense once the battery market gets going. Battery factories bigger than Tesla's are under construction in China and Germany. We'll probably have a battery glut in a few years. It's not really that hard to build a battery factory.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> disclosure: I work as a professional diesel mechanic for a midwestern chain of shops.

old diesel cars are literally the worst. I wholly endorse anything that will turn a 1986 Mercedes E class from a smog belching iron yacht into a functioning member of polite society. the price quoted here is a steal. take it.

If i were hired to make an old diesel car come up to modern emissions specifications, it would easily be three to five times the cost. Im looking at ripping the engine apart, machining new entry points for sensors, buying a new ECU, finding a place for urea tanks and pumps, and retrofitting a nox scrubber somewhere not to mention the labor charge. the engine will run hotter, so ill need a new radiator or intercooler too. it also has to be retrofitted with a limp or purge mode for when the vehicle runs out of urea or is due for regular service to prevent violating emissions regulations.

<comment><USER35> > buying a new ECU

This is not an option for older Merc engines, no practical options exists.

Or I would be gladly stand corrected in this matter as I own quite a few old collectible Mercs all in desperate need of modern technology update (invisible of course, like ECU + EFI).

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> When I was a teen (late 1990's) there was a website geared around "kits" for converting small American trucks into all electric. Think Ford Ranger and Chevy S10. I think the "kit" was around $5000. You basically pulled the motor, and installed custom built motor mounts to hold the new large electric motor. There was a custom built adapter that allowed the motor to bolt up to the transmission. Only manual transmissions were supported and the instructions just said to "leave it in 4th gear". Then there was the electronics and wiring for the power and charging circuits. You had to source your own batteries though.

I really wanted to buy the kit but to get any kind of actual range you basically had to fill the bed of the truck up with lead acid batteries. I figured the inefficiency of having to carry around a truck bed full of lead would never catch on and hence electric vehicles would never be a thing so I gave up on the idea...

</comment><comment><USER13> It's a good thing if it would scale, but I would like to see kits to reduce NOx emissions. It should be far easier to do and scale. After cheating scandals people, like me, are left with the cars that increasingly can't be driven in city centers. What will happen with those cars? They will head east. If such kits would be available one could dream about governments forcing car companies to pay at least significant part of the bill. However with current lobby it seems impossible to get a penny from car companies.

From what I understand those kits would need to tank adblue as trucks do. But whatever, I prefer that to breathing NOx.

</comment><comment><USER37> I would like to see an initiative like this but with hydrogen fuel cells. I think it would be more complex but more interesting in terms of: certifying road worthiness, since no more dealing with weight of batteries; no lithium- based batteries; more autonomy.

Despite being less efficient in terms of pure energy usage, I think hydrogen- based fuel cell-powered vehicules solve 2 problems for most users: autonomy and time of replenishment (refueling). We just need to invest in solar-based hydrogen generation plants. Hydrogen can be generated on site for replenishment.

<comment><USER38> You will need batteries with hydrogen fuel cells due to the fact the cells do not throttle quickly based on energy demand. The battery is required as a buffer for quickly discharging larger amounts of energy. So in effect you require a full blown electric drive train but with a smaller battery. In my opinion it is way less complex to just increase the size of the battery and get rid off the hydrogen parts.

<comment><USER37> The biggest problem with full electric powertrains is size of batteries and its weight. Keeping the size of batteries small and weighing less is a bonus in ICE car conversions, like I mentioned in my initial comment. Plus better replenishing time, which in most hydrogen fuel cells cars is around 3 minutes.

Edit: the Riversimple Rasa uses a hybrid lithium based battery/supercapacitor pack for this purpose.

<comment><USER39> I see people talking about refuellig time of hydrogen beein an advantage. Although most videoes I see on youtube seem to use ~10ish minutes - and it depends if the pumps has the correct pressure). Recharging an electric car is usually done in a few seconds of active time (plugging in the cable when you park), only if you exhaust the range during one trip you have to wait for recharging.

<comment><USER40> > Recharging an electric car is usually done in a few seconds of active time

You forgot the 5 minutes spent trying to download and install their own proprietary app, creating an account, just for the app to fail to start the charging...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> These are not the only ones doing stuff like this: I've met a guy with a huge, blue Van (older Mercedes Sprinter?), charging his car at an IKEA in Germany. The ICE was removed and he could go 200km on battery; this was done by a shop/company which do this on a bigger scale for that specific car model (hence he did not have to get a custom certificate for the car, which costs easily as much as a new car).

</comment><comment><USER42> I had this idea in the back of my head to create an open source electric car based on existing ICE cars and with open source software, mechanics and electronics. That would be awesome if anyone can change/adapt build plans to different cars and if anyone would be able to iteratively improve the each other ideas and cost saving measures.

</comment><comment><USER43> This is how Rimac started, by electrifying an old BMW E30 and making it the "green monster" [https://newatlas.com/old-bmw-worlds-quickest- ev/24594/](https://newatlas.com/old-bmw-worlds-quickest-ev/24594/)

The rest is history....

</comment><comment><USER44> This approach using repurposed Tesla batteries seems more of a proof-of- concept than anything (although that's entirely fair, given they currently produce [probably] the best examples).

However, this is probably the tip of an iceberg to come. There is a _huge_ amount of value worldwide in collectible/exotic/classic cars - values have soared since the '08 financial troubles, to the point of some cars becoming pure investments, rather than something to drive.

As we move _towards_ a world where the ICE will become extinct, what will happen to all of this automotive history? A few options:

* huge devaluation

* exemptions (to the ICE ban) for such cars... but at an increasing cost, as presumably petrol would become increasingly expensive and difficult to source

* widespread drive-train conversions, allowing such cars to be enjoyed in perpetuity

<comment><USER39> Or synthetically generated fuels (eg audi e-diesel, which is a diesel, but I think a petrol equivalent can be generated), which can be done today, but are very costly for general use. I don't think the cost of fuel for a classic car will be a huge issue even if it is very high (10x of todays cost).

<comment><USER44> _> I don't think the cost of fuel for a classic car will be a huge issue even if it is very high (10x of todays cost)._

Not sure about that.

Let's consider a generic classic car that delivers 25 miles per (UK Imperial) gallon, which is 5.5 miles per liter of petrol. At the moment, petrol is ~1.3-1.5 EUR/liter in central Europe.

Taking a mean of 1.4 EUR/L, that's ~25 cents/mile, or 4 miles/EUR. A 200 mile trip (say, a weekend away) would cost ~51 EUR - not too bad. 3000 miles in a year would cost ~764 EUR.

\---

Now, consider 10x the cost. 510 EUR in fuel, just for a weekend away? 7640 EUR for a year's occasional cruising around? Accepted that's no problem for the super-rich, but it starts to be punitive for a hobbyist owner. What about if you're into American classics that deliver 10 MPG?

Further, with that cost for fuel, the economics of a conversion make a lot more sense, before you even consider other possible incentives.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> As a geek I find this really cool, but as a realist I doubt the impact it can have. To replace ICE cars, the replacement has to be significantly better in some if not most dimensions.

Outside of hobbyist tinkerers / enthusiasts, it's going to be very difficult for a retrofit to compete with any electric-first design. Just weight distribution alone will be tough, and range is very low, to name a couple of issues.

Yes there is the perceived cost savings here, but I would argue that is a mirage, because over time the consumer will realize that they have made a mistake, and they will have to consider the price they paid as just an expense of learning a lesson. But hey it will surely provide some cool fun and conversation value in the meantime.

</comment><comment><USER46> As a point of comparison I have a Renault Twingo, the previous model as the one shown in the article, bought it second or third hand in 2004, the entire car for less than 5000€, so less than the modification here, and it's still working well.

Autonomy is about 500 Km (very small tank) but you never use this for long journeys, so the 100 Km after electrification would not be an issue.

The issue on my car is that there are points of rust in some places and there is a new law that may disqualify my working car from being road worthy the next time I go to the mandatory check. (gotta encourage car turn over for the economy).

If this modification could fix my rust issue (I think it's on the underside of the exhaust pipe so not needed anymore) I could be interested.

<comment> semi-extrinsic FYI rusted exhaust pipes can often be mended (at least for a while) using exhaust bandages. It's a cheap DIY low-risk fix.

Random manufacturer: [https://www.holtsauto.com/holts/products/gun-gum- silencer-re...](https://www.holtsauto.com/holts/products/gun-gum-silencer- repair-bandage/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> "Old diesel cars" aka, cars without all the safety crap that are 100's of kg lighter.

Ironically, there's lots of people that like to restore those older 70's and 80's model diesels because they're light and fuel efficient.

</comment><comment><USER48> When I researched electric cars in the 80s, before lithium batteries were around, a company was selling kits that transformed a VW Beetle into a lead- acid electric car. The ICE engine could be removed and the electric engine simply bolted into place on the drive plate. The main concern back then was the difficulty of regulating the flow of electricity so that acceleration was smooth, much easier to do nowadays. The big question has to be the safety of batteries stored in spaces not designed for batteries. (Who else thought of Back to the Future and Doc's retrofit on the Delorean?)

</comment><comment><USER49> There's also possibility for "soft"-electric conversion - add a few kwh lithium battery, remove alternator etc., which might bring reduction in fuel consumption.

</comment><comment><USER50> This kind of project would be really helpful in developing countries like India. People don't want to spend a lot of money just to save the environment. They will, however, use something like which does not cost much and will return quickly in fuel cost savings. But one has to figure out how to do that on a massive scale, keeping costs down, with thin margins and a lot of capital investment.

<comment><USER51> These guys [https://etrio.in/](https://etrio.in/) are doing it already and they are also ARAI approved so you are road legal too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> Seems like a lot of the viability of this may depend on the amount of engine and transmission connection standardization. If a manufacturer uses the same engine mount and powertrain connections across several models then an electric motor with compatible connections could fit a variety of cars.

So for those who know, is engine standardization still a thing and has it been over the past 10 years?

<comment><USER46> It could still be viable even if it's only for a small subset of models, because the target market is quite specific. It is for city cars of the previous generation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> A really obvious alternative to this at a similar cost would be a used Nissan Leaf.

Used non-Tesla EVs depreciate like crazy at extremely low miles. The Chevy Volt is another excellent used value (is this available in Europe?) and you still have a gasoline engine to bail you out on long trips.

You're also going to get way better serviceability with a stock OEM solution.

</comment><comment><USER54> When we speak about affordability, Hero and TVS comes in our mind, here are <a href="[https://www.motorcyclediaries.in/bike-news/best-scooters- und...](https://www.motorcyclediaries.in/bike-news/best-scooters- under-50000/">best) scooters under 50000</a>

</comment><comment><USER55> Funny to see the stock quotes at the end of the article: all mentioned manufacturers are in the +/\- 1%, while Tesla is up +6.5%.

Don't expect traditional manufacturers to enter the retrofitting market though : not interesting at all for them.

They will just prefer to sell new units, still against the « reuse, recycle » more ecological principle, to ensure shareholders' happiness.

<comment> King-Aaron > Don't expect traditional manufacturers to enter the retrofitting market > though

I don't know, you might see it happen down the track. Currently the large manufacturers like Chevrolet, Ford, etc offer 'crate engine' products for retrofitting into older/other vehicles. No reason you may not see them offer an electric crate package in the same way you can get a LSA crate package.

Granted, it's not like a 'plug and play' proposition - some DIY is required - but still, I don't think it's too big of a stretch to imagine it.

[https://www.chevrolet.com/performance/crate- engines/lsa](https://www.chevrolet.com/performance/crate-engines/lsa)

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> There was a project in Finland to make an open source kit / conversion as a service. Active around 2007 or so, they made some prototypes. I think the default conversion target was a 2003 Toyota Yaris.

[http://www.sahkoautot.fi/eng](http://www.sahkoautot.fi/eng)

</comment><comment><USER57> I would love to do this on a more modern-ish car, but watching a Rich Rebuilds video on retrofits, this probably is only feasible on older cars because you don't have to interface with any of the electronics in the car, or have HVAC.

</comment><comment><USER58> "an electric makeover—and offer a cut-price way to avoid driving bans across European cities."

Lower middle class and low emission zones. People don't have the budget to upgrade their cars and risk losing car mobility. Ask my hippie uncle in his old van. Meanwhile, there's air travel without externalities priced-in, electric vehicle subsidies, home battery subsidies, and more disproportionally benefiting us upper middle class and rich people.

This social problem is all over Western Europe. To those who don't care about social exclusion or global warming, it's free votes, free political capital. So no political consensus forthcoming on how to deal with it...

</comment><comment><USER59> Since building a car (even an electric one) generates a lot of pollution, this looks like a great solution to modernize the car park at an minimal environmental cost.

</comment><comment><USER60> What ever happened to Biodiesel?

<comment><USER61> Well, it's widely added (in small percentages) to regular diesels, mostly due to its cleaning properties. Even if you run 100% bio it still produces large amounts of PM2.5 pollution (less NOX than regular diesels, but that isn't none). And there's plenty of evidence that unless it was produced from non- food crops it's more less using food that should go to people to run your engine. I am happy to have switched from a TDI running 100% to a PHEV.

</comment></comment><comment><USER62> This is kinda what I've been waiting for when it comes to EVs.

</comment><comment><USER18> This is great news. To reach climate goals almost all cars need to be electric in under twenty years. That seems quite unrealistic if you want to do it only by replacing them with new cars.

<comment><USER63> Or the fuel used by ECU engines gets created from the CO2 in the air and carbon neutral energy. Seems easier to achieve than replacing all cars with low range models that need a charging spot at home. And the EV also only make a difference, if they use carbon free energy. It's more efficient to power your car with oil directly than to burn the oil for electricity and then power your car with that.

Imho EV's are a much overstated solution to a much deeper problem. EV's make little difference, if we are still running coal, gas and oil power plants to generate the electricity. It's just that our cars are a more visible problem in every day life.

If we had an abundance of carbon neutral energy and make fossil oil more expensive (e.g. through taxes) than renewable burnables, ICU engines would be our smallest problem.

<comment><USER27> This startup is in France with a 44gCO2eq/kWh electricity using 6gCO2eq/kWh nuclear electricity. Here EV emit 80% less than desiel car when you consider their whole life cycle.

<comment><USER63> My understanding could definitely be off here, but according to the official EU energy report (2018 report, 2016 numbers) [1] France is still consuming about 45% of fossil fuels, while whole Europe is around 70%. Further the energy network is connected throughout Europe and nuclear is great at providing base capacity, but not easy to scale up quickly and at least Germany is completely exiting nuclear fission. That's why we're using coal/gas/oil power plants for that.

So, when we are adding additional energy consumption to the network in the form of (many) EV, it will not charge with nuclear power, but more likely that we need to burn fossil fuel to keep the network up.

[1] [https://publications.europa.eu/en/publication- detail/-/publi...](https://publications.europa.eu/en/publication- detail/-/publication/99fc30eb-c06d-11e8-9893-01aa75ed71a1/language-en/format- PDF/source-77059768)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER64> I've been saying for about 5 years now that this is potentially a billion dollar market waiting to happen. Even more so now with many large economies looking at aggressive forced electric car purchases. Congratulations to those guys for getting the business off the ground.

Another potentially massive market will be in making "legacy" cars become autonomous, but that's still unknown as to when that market will really hit off as the technology still isn't there (or approved of by law makers). Still, moving first on that could really be big.

In general I think there is a massive market in old vehicles that isn't been capitalized on. Of course you have scrap, part selling, fixing, etc - but some of these working vehicles (with little wrong) get scrapped for no reason. From a green carbon footprint stand point, a lot of the car's carbon footprint is in making the vehicle itself. When you buy a 10+ year old car I think you're doing more to save the planet, regardless of whether the emissions are higher.</comment>


Europe isn't the new Silicon Valley. It's better - <AUTHOR> https://thenextweb.com/eu/2017/05/22/europe-isnt-the-new-silicon-valley-its-better/#.tnw_eEKI8OWX <comment><USER2> "I think the first mistake that people make is looking at the European tech scene as one large, monolithic block. It isn't. Rather, it's a collection of regions and cities, each with their own strengths and weaknesses."

That's exactly the problem. If it were one large block, like Silicon Valley for the USA - there would be a much more vibrant tech community.

<comment><AUTHOR> I guess what you are pointing out (it being a problem) is the conventional view, while the author tries to frame it as a strength. In the end, it can be both, depending on the situation. Maybe akin to the centralized vs decentralized structure of web services?

<comment><USER2> Interesting - What is the potential up side of smaller/separated markets?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Salary is way lower, tax way higher, more often focus on cost cutting than innovation, 90% of applicants can't pass a technical test so teams are always understaffed and overworked. If SV was in Europe that would be a dream scenario for Europeans. Many SW companies that makes it big in Europe try to relocate or branch out to SV asap.

<comment><AUTHOR> "Salary is way lower, tax way higher" You are of course fully aware that a lower salary is less of a problem if the living costs are way lower, which they are in most of Europe. Looking just at the income side doesn't really say a lot (except for international travel). Second, I keep hearing from people in the Bay Area who end up cashing out only 50 % of their salary due to taxes. I don't have any good first hand information on this, but how sure are you about this "tax way higher in Europe" claim?

<comment><USER3> Yes there are a lot of poor countries in Europe. If you look at countries where Europeans actually want to live (and where tech companies are) then the cost of living and taxes are high.

Also progressive income tax is common in Europe so you have to collect a very high salary to be much better off than the general population. E.g. You pay 40% on the first 50K then 50% on the next 20K then 60% on the next 20K... etc. A bit simplified but you get the picture.

Add to this that there often is a lot of "hidden" taxes in Europe. 25% sales tax on every dollar spent is not uncommon. Gasoline and alcohol (really anything considered luxury, polluting, dangerous etc) taxes are often very high in countries where tech companies are. And you first pay that tax and the sales tax are added so you pay tax on tax.

When adding all this it's not uncommon to reach 90% real tax on a dollar earned and spent.

There's and old saying that you can't get rich on a salary in Europe and I think it is at least 99% true. Some countries have an ok standard of living for the general population, but if you want more you will find that it is hard to achieve.

Also companies are taxed harder which makes it difficult to start new businesses based on innovation etc. You see a lot of consulting startups since you can start to bill hours right away. But no real value is created there..

<comment><USER4> > You pay 40% on the first 50K then 50% on the next 20K then 60% on the next > 20K... etc. A bit simplified but you get the picture.

Which countries have anything like that? I live and work in Norway, commonly regarded as a high tax country, and the maximum marginal tax rate is less than 50%. Someone earning 50kUSD would pay about 25% in income tax.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> How big is Europe and how big is the valley? This is comparing apples to oranges...

</comment><comment><USER6> Comparing a tiny region in California with a continent... Typically American.

<comment><USER7> > _Typically American_

This sort of swipe never helps and national slurs are not allowed on HN, so please don't comment like this again.

<comment><USER6> My comment may look kind of trollish, but I'm rather serious. The American media has a serious disinterest in news that is not American. On the hand, this is understandable, since the USA is so big.

However, most Americans do not realize that their view of the world is incomplete. I do consider my post a valid contribution, and no more of a 'national slur' than posts complaining about Trumps administration.

<comment><USER7> > _However, most Americans_

Please just keep this sort of handwavy national generalization off HN altogether. It's unsubstantive and leads to flamewars. Since you've done this repeatedly, it's worth stressing the point.

<comment><USER6> Is it better substantiated if I post a source?

[http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-05-15/1746-american- adult...](http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-05-15/1746-american-adults-were- asked-point-out-north-korea-map-was-result)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


How to Get On the Front Page of Hacker News - <AUTHOR> http://blog.rjmetrics.com/how-to-get-on-the-front-page-of-hacker-news/

<comment><USER2> HN is turning into an entrepreneurship / self-help subreddit. The variance of the types of articles that reach the front pages has been dropping significantly IMHO. And I can't see any simple mechanism for restoring it, either.

</comment><comment><USER3> These posts contribute to the decline of HN. If you're here to get on the front page or to sell something you're here for the wrong reason and you should do us all a favor and find your pageviews somewhere else.

<comment><USER4> Dear benologist, you must be new around here. <http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html>

In particular, the gist of your post is better expressed by flagging OP.

[edit] On a related note, a post ``how others are gaming HN ranking algorithm to get more pageviews'' would indeed be relevant.

<comment><USER3> My ability to flag articles got taken away after I used it too much.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> It looks like this has disappeared from the front page despite 13 votes in 36 minutes. I assume it was flagged :-(

I understand it's a controversial topic, but I don't think this post violates any of the submission guidelines. If this was flagged, I would really appreciate feedback as to why. I don't want to invest time in future posts that might not see the light of day.

Thanks, RJM

</comment><comment><USER5> I assume 8:35am ET on Monday is the best time to submit, based on when this was submitted. No need to read the article ;-)

</comment><comment><USER6> I never thought of HN as a medium to promote anything but in any case I found the analysis very interesting.

</comment><comment><USER7> its upto you...</comment>


"Spy On Us Equally" - Startup to NSA - <AUTHOR> http://blog.zerply.com/post/52626645914/nsa-refuses-to-monitor-zerplys-database

<comment><USER2> I know this is intended to be a clever marketing thing (and it is pretty clever) but please don't. It is well off color relative to the importance of the issue.

"Spy on us equally" and "he's defecting to China" are the two emerging ways pro-NSA people are spinning this thing. Don't fuel them.

</comment><comment><USER3> Just two serious reactions!? Come on people! We want to see a flame war apocalypse and we'll never get there at this rate! Surely there must be some deep seeded angst-ridden phrases you've been saving up for a rainy day! Now's the time to use them! :) I'm thinking of phrases like "the nerve!" and maybe "freedom isn't free. live free, die hard (TM)" and "this is no laughing matter", etc.

Also, NSA, if you're listening (and, let's face it, that's your thing) - I'm going to need a cell room with WiFi - is that ok?

</comment><comment><USER4> Quick question; what's the flag link do? Because I don't have enough karma to downvote this link but I feel I need to do something to save others the time of having to read this.

No disrespect to zerply. I'm sure there are other corners of the internet where this link would be appropriate but it just feels woefully out of place here on HN.

<comment><USER5> flagging == downvote, essentially.</comment></comment>


A look at Hans Zimmer's studio - <AUTHOR> http://www.stuckincustoms.com/2010/01/29/the-secret-lair-of-hans-zimmer-from-where-he-inspires-the-world/ <comment><USER2> What is that technology in the wall in the last picture?

<comment><USER3> Looks like a more or less complete setup of a Moog Modular Synth ...</comment></comment>


Blue Apron, with a market cap of $57M, putting itself up for sale - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/eringriffith/status/1229883572665761792 <comment><USER2> Disintermediation link to the press release that all of the news services are quoting from:

[https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200218006089/en/Blu...](https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200218006089/en/Blue- Apron-Holdings-Reports-Fourth-Quarter-Full)

Relevant quote:

> _Blue Apron also announced that its Board of Directors, supported by its > management team, is evaluating a broad range of strategic alternatives to > maximize shareholder value, including to support the execution of its growth > strategy. These alternatives could include, among other things, a strategic > business combination, a capital raise through the public or private markets, > a transaction that results in private ownership or sale of the company or > its assets, or some combination of these._</comment>


"By 2100, we will be living under a man made sun" - <AUTHOR> http://dependviral.com/baba-vanga-makes-terrifying-predictions-about-world-events-for-2016-and-future/ <comment><USER2> ...by the same person that has predicted World War III to happen in 2010-2014, leaving the Northern hemisphere devoid of life. [https://lighthead.wordpress.com/2008/09/30/baba-vanga- predic...](https://lighthead.wordpress.com/2008/09/30/baba-vanga- predictions-2010-5079/)

In other news, Imminent Death Of The Net Predicted!!!!!!!</comment>


Boston Marathon Blasts Kill 2, Police Say - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/16/us/explosions-reported-at-site-of-boston-marathon.html

<comment><USER2> See <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5553543>

</comment><comment><USER3> Still finding suspicious packages around the city... Please stay safe!

</comment><comment><USER4> Any reason why I shouldn't flag this?</comment>


New bill to allow $1m crowdfunding rounds - <AUTHOR> http://merkley.senate.gov/newsroom/press/release/?id=9E32CE5C-4DF0-4596-BA92-5695F68681F6

<comment><USER2> Am I the only one on HN who thinks this is a bad idea? I can only see this going one of two ways:

\- Minimally regulated so that it is easy to get money, but then full of scams.

\- Heavily regulated so that it is hard to get money, which makes it not much better than the current system.

I'd love to see smaller investors able to invest in startups, but it just seems like a bad idea to let any old person invest.

Can someone convince me I'm wrong?

<comment><USER3> Scams are going to happen.

The accredited investor rules have been around long before the internet and all of the tools we can now use to follow up on start up companies and the people behind them.

I am certain that if this bill passes, there will be plenty of services offered to dig up this kind of information and make this kind of due diligence easier and more complete.

Sure, grandma and grandpa might be targeted by scammers (not that there is any shortage of Utah based pyramid schemes and other n'er do wells out there doing just that) but there should be /severe/ penalties attached to discourage bad actors.

I don't think we should be protecting people from themselves as much as we do as a society, and I really think this is going to be a net positive when all of the wrinkles are ironed out.

<comment><USER2> > I don't think we should be protecting people from themselves as much as we > do as a society

That much I do agree with you. This is definitely a case of the government protecting people from themselves. Just the same, I'm still not sure it's a good idea because it will give entrepreneurs a bad name, so in a sense, it is protecting that reputation too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> In what way is crowd funding illegal now? I am assuming that is what the gentleman was implying with "legalize and regulate."

Doesn't regulation of a 'crowdsourced' anything, kind of defeat the purpose? The entire idea is that many small failures lead too faster successful iterations.

<comment><USER5> Crowd donating is legal. Crowd investing is not; currently, investors must be accredited or qualified.

<comment><USER6> I never really understood the reasoning behind accredited investors.

<comment><USER7> Imagine those infomercials that run late at night on cable TV, except instead of selling dubious kitchen gadgets, they're selling equity in dubious social media startups to your grandmother.

<comment><USER8> Imagine a world where everyone who thinks they're building "the next Facebook" can be matched up with regular people who want to invest in "the next Facebook"...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I think this is great but the fraud potential is going to be key. It says it will require the companies to provide basic financial documentation but it will be interesting to see what the SEC requires. Also, what legal responsibility will these crowdfunded companies have to their investors.

I also wonder how this would impact wider disclosure requirements. From what I've read, you can only have so many private investors (500?) before you are required to provide enlarged financial statements. Apparently it's one of the reasons Facebook needs to IPO--too many stockholders. If this law isn't modified in this bill--you'd have small companies who had to spend tons of resources to comply at a very young age.

</comment><comment><USER10> what is a "registered internet website"? Is that just their long winded term for website or do crowdfunding sites need to register with some government agency?

<comment><USER11> I assume in order for it to 'legalize and regulate' there would probably have to be some form of registration specific to the crowdfunding sites. But I agree, they should clarify.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Interesting. Here are two similar bills: [http://thehill.com/blogs/floor- action/house/191669-bills-eas...](http://thehill.com/blogs/floor- action/house/191669-bills-easing-sec-rules-advance-in-house)

One of them passed the House recently: <http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h112-2930>

</comment><comment><USER13> Not really a new bill, since it's just the Senate equivalent of the House's HR2930: <http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d112:h.r.02930>:

</comment><comment><USER14> anyone know how long this might take to pass and become legislation?

</comment><comment><USER15> ... _why_?

I thought the way VCs worked is that most of their investments go bust, while a few percent do absurdly well. How do you "minimize the risk of ... loss" for people who supposedly can't afford it, by giving them access to something even professionals usually lose money on?

This is an alternative to the "detailed disclosures" the SEC requires now, the way that's presented makes it sound like this requires less detail.

Is this because more people want to directly invest in startups, or because startups have a hard time getting funding the way things are now? Either way it sounds a bit bubbly...

</comment><comment><USER16> I think a good sign of when a legislature has stopped being remotely sensible is when _all_ its new bills have preposterous backronyms instead of names.

</comment><comment><USER17> this is a bad idea on the level of the TSA idea</comment>


Sharp Variables - <AUTHOR> http://blog.thejit.org/2009/03/24/sharp-variables/

<comment><USER2> So a "sharp variable" is just a particular syntax to represent a reference? Is anyone else somewhat unimpressed by this? I mean, sure, it's kind of helpful for readability in the printout, and it's kind of nice to be able to one-line a recursive data structure. Just about any reasonably clear syntax will work for the former; there's no reason that the programmer would need to know about it before encountering it.

The latter is mostly useful in a lazy evaluation context; in other situations, you're only rarely creating recursive data structures in the first place (circular linked lists are the most obvious case).

<comment><USER3> I'm also struggling to see the big benefit. I guess if you are allowed multiple sharp variable references -- as apparently Mozilla's Javascript allows -- you can construct a directed graph in a single statement, including cycles. I don't see that being very useful outside of entering test cases, though.

<comment><USER4> Graphs are the new hashtable - this is a great feature. Much of the interesting things being done now are done with giant graph structures.

BTW, it's so lame that PLT Scheme is going in the opposite direction. They had the same excellent notation for a long time, but now since they forbid list mutation* they are useless.

(* Yes, I know you can explicitly use mutable lists, but they don't work with the huge list library, for example SRFI-1, and there's no literal syntax for them, so it's like using lists in a language that doesn't like lists. Useless.)

Actually, I wonder if there's a better syntax for graph literals than this? That would be valuable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> The article asserts that sharp variables are "pretty useful" without actually mentioning a use. What exactly would one use them for?

<comment><USER5> I've seen them used to create inline infinite lists:

        (loop for loop-this in '#1=(:a :b :c . #1#)
              for just-once in '(1 2 3 4 5 6 7)
              do (format t "~S => ~S~%" just-once loop-this))
        =>
        1 => :A
        2 => :B
        3 => :C
        4 => :A
        5 => :B
        6 => :C
        7 => :A
        NIL

This encapsulates the "loop over this list forever" at its definition, instead of making me use an array and using length/modulo where it's used. There are of course many other solutions, but this one is both short and perfectly describes what I want.

Many Lisp library functions take lists as inputs (no kidding!), so this is a very efficient alternative to actually creating a repetitive list. (Pythoners: think itertools.cycle).

Also, any time you want to build a simple-but-not-trivial graph inline (great for unit testing), these come in handy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> There must not be a space between the "#1" and the "=" - it behaves as one token, "#1=". Otherwise you get an "Illegal Character" error.

Playing with it in Firefox's error console (is there an easier way?), it seems general. e.g. this works:

      var myArray = [1, 2, #1= [1,2,#1#]];  myArray.toSource();

The sharp variables seem to work as if you generated them as incrementing labels. Hence, the references must be back-references not forward-references (so you can say "[1, #1= [2, 3], #1#]", but not "[1, #1#, #1= [2, 3]]"). And they must be numeric ("[1, #a= [2, 3], #a#]" is out). And their naming becomes the order they are needed in (so "#2= [#1= [#2#], #1#]" becomes "#1=[#2=[#1#], #2#]"). Reminiscent of regex backreferences.

</comment><comment><USER7> I was hoping this was further evidence of javascripts roots as a lisp. But it seems like it is spider-monkey-centric and thus not some throwback to the original spec/implementation. Still cool!

</comment><comment><USER8> Interesting, but I don't see mention of this in Javascript spec ([http://www.ecma-international.org/publications/files/ECMA- ST...](http://www.ecma-international.org/publications/files/ECMA- ST/Ecma-262.pdf)), so I'm guessing it's not portable.

<comment><USER3> It seems to be a Mozilla-only thing: [https://developer.mozilla.org/en/Sharp_variables_in_JavaScri...](https://developer.mozilla.org/en/Sharp_variables_in_JavaScript)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Incidentally, it's the same in Ruby, and supports :

      a = [1,2,3]
      => [1, 2, 3]
      a << a
      => [1, 2, 3, [...]]
      a.inspect

It's not true laziness, though; it's as long as the list when you tie it to itself.

</comment><comment><USER10> Sharp variables don't seem particularly useful, but I didn't know about .toSource() in Firefox before I read this article, and that does sound like it could be useful.

</comment><comment><USER11> Sharp variables sound pretty dangerous. Has anyone hurt themselves using them?

</comment><comment><USER12> Everytime I see somebody using .toSource() I show due respect.</comment>


Solved first 10 Project Euler problems in R, available for hire. - <AUTHOR>

Hi, I am a UC Berkeley graduate (Masters in Biostatistics) data scientist/programmer looking for either full- or part-time work.  As a work sample, I can  provide my code for the first 10 solved Euler problems, and other examples (including graphics I generated), by request.<p>Reply to firstname.lastname@example.com.  Thanks! <comment><USER2> Let me know if this works. I have a friend who has been doing the Euler problems just for fun. He doesn't seem to believe he has the chops to be a full time developer. I'd love to show him he is wrong.

</comment><comment><USER3> Upvoted simply for being amusing. Beats any 'rockstar programmer' ad I've ever seen.</comment>