Tesla-Swapped 1950 Jaguar Can’t Quite Match Original Model 3’s Range

This 1950 Jaguar got the motor and battery pack out of a Tesla Model 3.

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13:09

Andrei Nedelea

By: Andrei Nedelea

Mar 18, 2022 at 11:47am ET

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Turning an old classic car into an EV is something more old car lovers will have to contend with in the future, but while it may ruin the originality, it oftentimes makes the vehicle better than it ever was. The same can be said of this work-in-progress 1950 Jaguar that now runs a Tesla Model 3 motor and battery pack, although it can’t quite match the Tesla’s range.

SuperfasstMatt has been working on this very cool conversion project for over a year now and we’ve been following it from the start. The Jaguar is now fully functional and drivable and it has instilled its creator with the confidence needed to even take it out on a longer drive, a good moment to also gauge its range.

The battery pack he used is out of a Model 3 Standard Range, so its capacity was around 50 kWh when new, although even then, the usable capacity was probably closer to 40 kWh. Interestingly, even though the Jaguar with all the Tesla powertrain components, suspension and battery pack is actually similar in weight to the Model 3, but the same can’t be said of its aero efficiency.

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As Matt (who is an actual engineer) points out, at low speeds it should probably come close, but as you drive it quicker, the fact that the Jaguar never saw a wind tunnel starts to become obvious. He decided to drive to a local weekend car meet point, which was easily in range of a Model 3 Standard Range, but he actually almost ran out of juice on his way home from that event.

He estimates that his Tesla-swapped Jag is probably realistically only good for around half the 250 miles that the original Model 3 SR could have covered. However, we say that there has to be something other than aero bringing the range down - maybe the battery pack he used has lost capacity or there is still room to fine tune and improve the efficiency without making any major changes.