Ah, EVs. Magical to some, blasphemous to others. Few topics divide the automotive world quite like electrification — and yet, most of us want a taste of what EVs offer: instant torque, buttery-smooth acceleration, and near-zero maintenance.

Sure, internet warriors and some corners of the media love to dunk on them. But here’s the truth: EV powertrains make a lot of sense in certain builds — especially in vehicles that were never that exciting to begin with. You know the ones. The cars that always felt like they were missing something.

That’s where the SPARK methodology comes in. This methodology was developed to help guide you step by step through the thinking and planning process of an EV conversion. We love wrenching, doing, and making, but I believe in sitting down and planning everything first to see if it makes sense.

Let’s walk through an example in which I will attempt to capture my train of thought in writing.

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The most important step in any automotive creation process is defining what we want the vehicle to do. The answer to this might be as simple as “I want it to look cool”, or it could be as complex as “I want it to reach a peak acceleration of 5.36m/s²while carrying a payload of 180 kg on a 1% grade AND look cool”. The more clearly we define our needs, the better the results will be, so the idea behind this phase is to come up with Engineering Decisions: a group of parameters that will translate into our basic requirements for this conversion.

High Level definition of what the vehicle should be

Let’s start simple and high level:

This EV conversion will be used for weekend cruising around town only, and maybe as a commuter every now and then. My commute is short and cruising around town is normally less than 20 miles total, but I’d love to have a significant buffer there, so having a real world combined total range of 60 miles would suffice. The vehicle should be able to drive in highways and city traffic, so top speed should slightly exceed the legal highway speed limit, let’s say around 85 mph. I don’t really need it to be quick, but the quickness of a small “hot hatch” or a sporty sedan would be great, so a 0-60 mph time that matches that of a stock FG2 Civic Si would be ideal. My wife, my dog and I would be the only passengers, and we don’t normally carry much cargo so no special request there. This would be a 3-season car: spring, summer and fall, it’d be stored during the winter since I live in Michigan and I don’t plan to use it on such cold and snowy weather. Since I have a level 2 charger at home, I would need the car to be able to take a J1772 connector and charge overnight.

Now let’s get more specific here and categorize the Engineering Decisions we need to make. The table below shows the Categories, Requirements and Engineering Decisions based on my text above.

Category	Requirement	Engineering Decision
Use Case	Vehicle Purpose	Weekend cruiser and occasional short commute
	Daily Driving Pattern	< 20 miles typical, with 60 miles desired range buffer
	Seasonal Use	3-season (spring, summer, fall) — stored in winter
Occupant & Load	Max Passengers	2 adults + 1 dog
	Payload	Minimal (small bags, no towing or heavy cargo)
Performance Requirements	Top Speed	~85 mph (highway capable)
	0–60 Acceleration	Match 2009 Civic Si (FG2) — approx. 6.7 seconds
	Grade Climb	Standard US roads (~7% max grade assumed)
Energy Requirements	Desired Real-World Range	60 miles (combined city/highway)
	Battery Range Buffer	Significant margin over 20-mile daily trips
Environment	Operating Climate	Michigan: mild to hot conditions (no extreme cold use)
Charging Strategy	Charging Time	Overnight (6–8 hours) acceptable
	Charging Standard	Level 2, J1772 compatible

These are objective parameters, though. Many types of vehicles could potentially meet these requirements and do just fine. We could achieve these goals with a Jeep Wrangler, a Toyota Matrix or a Ford Excursion conversion. So, this is where it gets personal, this is where we give it our touch.

In this particular example, I decided to use a 1990 Oldsmobile Toronado Trofeo as the donor car. I wrote a short article a while back, where I mentioned this car before, but here’s why it made the cut for this SPARK exercise:

It’s got that underrated ’90s futuristic styling, a front-wheel-drive layout that simplifies packaging, a surprisingly comfortable interior (this was peak Luxury Coupe Era, after all), and — most importantly — a forgettable 3.8L V6 that dragged the whole car down into the depths of mediocrity. That powertrain never lived up to the rest of the car’s ambitions, which makes it a perfect candidate for a second life as an EV.

Now that we’ve defined the purpose and design intent for this build, it’s time to turn those Engineering Decisions into real-world numbers. That’s what we’ll do in the next article – Plan – where we go from an idea, something that could even resemble a short conversation with a friend, to actual numbers so we can later select the components to power our EV conversion.