Electric motor swaps are gaining mainstream popularity, and that’s only going to increase with both Ford’s Eluminator and GM’s eCrate offerings to come. We even got the chance to drive Ford’s Mustang Mach-E-powered F-100 pickup, and our story piqued some interest over at AEM Performance Electronics. Would we be interested in giving its Tesla-swapped S197 Mustang a go, AEM asked?
We said yes, naturally, and soon headed to AEM’s headquarters in Hawthorne, California. First up, Lawson Mollica, AEM’s Director of Marketing & Public Relations gave us some of the technical basics. There’s a lot to unpack here—some of which we will get into—but we’ve opted to keep you engineering nerds in suspense with a more holistic nitty-gritty deep-dive article to come, in which we will explain exactly how an EV swap differs from your average engine swap. For now, what follows is our experience behind the wheel of AEM’s electric-propulsion pony car.
AEM is an electronics company, and those components are what the Testang is meant to highlight. AEM developed its own Inverter Control Board which replaces Tesla’s inverter controller, allowing the company to build its own torque maps and change the driving characteristics and get more power out of the Tesla motors. That controller is mounted to a circuit board that attaches to the Tesla’s inverter. AEM’s Vehicle Control Unit (VCU) is what orchestrates current demand in relation to pedal input to turn a wild project car into a relatively civilized machine.
Under the hood—replacing the three-valve, 310-hp, 4.6-liter V-8—is an array of six hybrid car batteries, with six more located under the car where you’d normally find the fuel tank. AEM went with batteries from hybrid cars because they’re optimized for short bursts of high-energy draw, like getting a vehicle up to highway speeds, allowing the gas engine can take over when cruising. We mentioned that the car is equipped with Tesla’s base drive unit, but the original builder equipped it with the more powerful sport drive unit. But this setup is no wimp; AEM’s controller, in conjunction with these hybrid batteries, is able to get 330 lb-ft of torque and 300 kW from the motor, which translates to 400+ horsepower. That’s more power out of the Tesla base drive unit than Tesla gets from its larger, sport drive unit.
As with a factory electric vehicle application, AEM enables the motor to act as a generator, although the regen function was dialed way back when we were driving to allow for a much more familiar coasting feel when releasing the throttle. That’s also adjustable, of course.
The Testang’s 12-volt system was left intact to power the aftermarket stereo in the dash worked, as well as the auto-up power windows.
There’s only one real aspect in which the Testang is lacking: HVAC. With no engine constantly running to drive it, electric vehicles rely on a separate motor to power the AC compressor and the previous owner removed much of the factory Mustang’s AC system. AEM will have that resolved soon, as their VCU has been used to run AC as well as battery cooling and heating loops in other electric vehicles. The company is already working on Testang V2 to satisfy increasing demand to get this car into the hands of eager enthusiasts. AEM’s engineers still need a development mule that can be torn down and modified at a moment’s notice, and AC in the Testang will be a must during the summer.
AEM’s Testang handles a lot like a modern Mustang, in part because the batteries are positioned in such a way that they replace weight where it would be found in a normal Mustang—up front and under the hood. The additional batteries and the drive unit do put more weight over the rear, effectively balancing the car a bit more, but it doesn’t feel like a heavy modern EV. As for the electric power delivery, it is 100-percent smooth and dialed in just as you’d expect from a factory EV. That’s a hugely impressive accomplishment, and somehow the Testang still feels like a Mustang aside from the powertrain.
AEM sees EV conversions as a critical avenue for future enthusiasts and hopes to be the supplier for the hardware needed to simplify the process. Considering that even some of our most carburetor-obsessed gearhead friends have warmed to the benefits of an electric cruiser, let alone one that can hit the autocross like the Testang, we think that AEM is onto something.