by Michael Teo Van Runkle
In a muddy, windswept airfield northwest of London, two classic Land Rover Defenders sit facing each other on a low hillock. One, an immaculately restored four-door replete with sumptuous leathers and lacquered woodgrain. The other, more of a rough-and-tumble two-door military truck entirely lacking any of its companion’s luxury trappings.
Both ride high with lifted suspension over knobby tires, to enhance the classic Defender’s off-road capability – and yet neither clatters around with a clattering diesel engine or a primitive Rover V8. Instead, these two Landies both serve as testbeds for Electrogenic, a British firm that specializes in producing software-defined EV conversion kits for a wide range of classic cars. But how does a newly sustainable vintage 4x4 actually drive off-road? This past January, I battled my way through a frigid British winter to find out.
Other notable makes and models in the Electrogenic portfolio include E-Type Jaguars, DeLoreans, Porsches, the Mazda Miata, and Mini Coopers – the latter of which won Top Gear’s “Retro Hero” award in 2024. Those low-slung sports cars might feature significantly better aerodynamics for an EV conversion than the upright Defender, and yet the opportunity to replace a sluggish, underpowered internal-combustion engine (and all of its deleterious emissions considerations) still proves highly popular among Electrogenic’s customers.
The EV swap improves a Defender’s throttle response, low-end torque production, and ease of driving for city runabouts, exploration vehicles, or farm rigs where livestock might startle less easily, thanks to silent operation. The job sounds complex – and yet Electrogenic’s goal from the get-go involved making a swap and recommissioning as painless as possible.
At the company’s shop, I ducked my head under the hood of multiple builds underway – many of them secrets, thus far – and witnessed how the bolt-in electric powertrain requires no cutting, sawing, or drilling into the original Defender body or chassis. Every part bolts into original mounting points, from the battery pack under the hood to the electric motor that mates with the four-wheel-drive transfer case.
Electrogenic claims a conversion can take an experienced shop less than a week, a believable timeframe, especially given that Top Gear actually sent an inexperienced journalist to do the Mini Cooper swap in only one day. The kit comes with all high-voltage work handled for the 93-kilowatt-hour battery pack, controller hardware, and the 150-kilowatt motor.
In more traditional terms, the electric motor pumps 201 horsepower and a prodigious 663 lb-ft torque into the transfer case, effectively replacing the internal-combustion engine and transmission with a single unit. All the modern electrical hardware and wiring harnesses still needed to communicate with the classic Defender components, though, so Electrogenic developed new wiring and running gear in-house, the latter of which passes 43 destructive tests for European road legality. Even the reduction gearsets, end caps, and output shafts come included.
Electrogenic built this specific Defender 110 a year and a half ago, and uses the rig as a testbed for abuse. Other than the restored cosmetics and EV conversion, the truck also features a two-inch lift with Fox Racing shock dampers and a set of Wilwood brakes to haul down speed given the newfound power. Not that I drove particularly fast in the mud and muck. Instead, the electric motor’s throttle modulation quickly emerged as the most impressive part of the build.
In slippery mud or when marching up gravel climbs, too much instantaneous electric torque might break the tires loose and cause slippage. Instead, rather than tuning for the kind of neck-snapping acceleration that makes a Lucid Air Sapphire or Tesla Model S Plaid so utterly brutal, Electrogenic let my right foot do the grunt of the work. In four-low, a stalk on the lower right side of the steering column even controls hill descent using regenerative braking.
Meanwhile, the impressive articulation made possible by the Defender’s solid axles, front and rear, carries over. This allows for the use of locking differentials because the electric motor sends power to the transfer case, then on to the original axles – more articulation means the tires stay in contact with the ground more, which results in the electrons steadily pushing the Defender through challenging areas of traction.
The full E93 kit adds about 150 kilograms (or 330 pounds) to the curb weight, due to the large battery pack. But the Landie never felt too top-heavy nor tippy, in deeply rutted “elephant tracks” this electric rig just kept silently carrying on, slow and steady at lean angles that brought out a few gasps, cross-axled to the max yet still able to find enough traction in the mud to put down that newfound power.
I even enjoyed a bit of ripping around on wet grass, somewhat silly given that the Landie was not traditionally a high-speed 4x4. Here, the nicely weighted and not terribly imprecise steering, for a solid front axle truck, helped with feel and confidence.
The rest of the time when not in four-low, that same stalk on the steering column allows for the selection of three drive modes: Eco, Normal, and Sport. Electrogenic programs different regenerative braking levels for both, and the ECU even adjusts regen response based on how quickly I lifted my foot off the brake pedal. That’s a nifty detail, and reveals how much the firm believes in reaching an OEM level of thought – and software programming.
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Just about the single most critical detail, for a quintessential British January, the seat heaters still worked! The fit and finish also stood out as impressively refined. Under the hood, a big box of batteries replaces the original internal-combustion engine, with a clean and only modestly futuristic aesthetic. Orange high-voltage lines run visibly along the ladder frame, and inside, only the billet gear selector knob, with a very gentle shift action, differentiates this EV from any other restomodded Defender.
On-road, the body proved surprisingly devoid of creaks and rattles, though I picked up a bit of wind and tire noise since the electric motor runs far quieter. A faint buzz from the electric power steering pump crept in at times, too, though the original geometry of the solid front axle leaves little in the way of improvement to the Defender’s abysmal turning radius.
Still, I can definitely call the EV swap a worthy tradeoff from a powertrain perspective. This truck gets up to speed easily, and even puts out a solid punch in Sport mode to make overtaking on British B-roads a cinch – rather than formerly requiring miles of visibility ahead, planning, and downshifting to wrangle enough power and acceleration out of such a lumbering old truck.
In that regard, the military build served as a project to explore how electric capability might be relevant to the troops. Of course, stealth and silence come to mind – as well as a reduced heat signature for nighttime operations where enemy combatants might use thermal imagery. But Electrogenic also claims the EV swap reduces driver fatigue, precisely because the powertrain takes so much less mental effort to actually drive. No more constant shifting, adjusting throttle, worrying about fuel economy, and Jerry cans and oil leaks (though arguably, the latter does detract somewhat from the original Defender experience).
Narrower and knobbier tires hint at some of the rougher details, but a lower final drive ratio and top speed, plus revised tuning with a new knob for more discrete adjustment of regen using a dial for 1-10. This helps for farm life as much as the military, where owners might be towing or reversing down a hill rather than evading adversaries. On both, Electrogenic retained the original gauges to make driving as familiar as possible for buyers accustomed to ICE Defenders, though they’re now computer-controlled, which does provide the option to switch to a fully digital display.
The sense of familiarity applied most to the more coiffed restomod. I didn’t need a lecture or lesson; I just climbed right in and drove for a few hours without worrying about range or modes or settings. Whether the military can run the risk of troops burning through charge remains another question—and I didn’t get to drive far enough, fast enough to truly test Electrogenic’s range claims. Still, no matter how much fun a Corvette V8 swap might sound for a Defender, that kind of raw power and roaring performance runs somewhat anathema to this iconic vehicle’s original character.
Covered in mud, spraying flecks of grit and grime everywhere, cutting grass all day with the front skid plate and trailer hitch, the Electrogenic builds revealed exactly where the best aspects of a Defender can benefit from the best aspects of EV life. And though any shop with a semblance of know-how, as well as any backyard mechanic with the inclination, can perform the swap, Electrogenic recommends that American customers contact partners InoKinetic in Southern California and Whittam Engineering in New Jersey to discuss a potential build.
Kits run around $65,000 with every single component needed to complete a swap included, or well north of six figures if a shop sources and helps to restore the donor vehicle. Alternatively, Electrogenic also takes on bespoke projects in the UK, including a Rolls-Royce Phantom II converted for actor Jason Momoa and British comedian Jimmy Carr’s electric Aston Martin DB6.
I personally envision an electric Defender as perfect for running errands around town, or for a vacation house, either slope- or beachside. And the prospect of an EV-swapped vintage sports car definitely piqued my curiosity on site, even if I wound up surprised by how well an electric conversion of this caliber actually made a classic Defender significantly more appealing in the first place.
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Images: Michael Teo Van Runkle
