Out of Office is a new GeekWire series spotlighting the passions and hobbies that members of the Seattle-area tech community pursue outside of work.
- Name: Peter Lee.
- Day job: President, Microsoft Research. Lee leads the organization’s global labs and drives the incubation of new research-powered products in artificial intelligence, computing foundations, health, and life sciences.
- Out-of-office passion: Converting classic cars to electric.
When Peter Lee first started his research for a project to convert his replica 1955 Porsche 550 Spyder to electric, he used the AI model Davinci-003 (OpenAI’s early Chat GPT-4) for help with the engineering design.
When he explained to the AI what he wanted to do, the first response Lee got back was, “Why on earth would you want to ruin a beautiful classic car like that?”
The head of Microsoft Research doesn’t just hear it from artificial intelligence. Now in the midst of converting another classic — a 1968 Ford Mustang GT Fastback — Lee is used to plenty of human car fanatics expressing their displeasure with his hobby.
“Half the people I’ve told about this project think it’s the coolest thing, and the other half think it’s totally evil,” Lee said. “One guy actually told me I’m never going to heaven.”
Lee, who joined Microsoft in 2010 and previously spent 22 years at Carnegie Mellon University, was named one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people in health and life sciences in 2024. Cars have been a passion since he was a kid. He raced karts and Formula Ford, and was even a licensed auto body technician for a time.
Frustrated by fuel system issues with the Porsche in 2020, Lee connected with Marc Davis, founder of Moment Motor Co. in Austin, Texas, a shop that “transforms vintage head-turners into modern electric cars.” Moment is dedicated to “preserving the art and beauty” of classics like those owned by Lee.
Some classic car lovers are quick to criticize EV conversions for messing with the original gas-powered intent of manufacturers, pointing out that the cost alone makes it irresponsible. Davis said Moment’s work generates “plenty of vomit emojis” from purists on the company’s social media posts.
“I personally believe what we’re doing is preservation,” he said, pointing to projects in which people bring new life to a car that was their all-time favorite or something that their dad drove. (This Bloomberg video shows how the conversion process works.)
The cost of such a conversion can depend on car condition, size, and performance and range requirements from the owner, but Davis puts the ballpark between $50,000 and $150,000. That’s on top of a classic car that might cost $200,000. The Mustang project entails 100-150 hours of engineering work and 400-500 hours of installation work.
Lee is drawn to many of the benefits of going electric — no gas or oil to worry about, modern components, and explosive torque.
In the wet Pacific Northwest, Lee’s Porsche is garaged for the winter at a 50% charge. On the first nice day in the spring, there’s little to fuss with.
“I’ll just check the air in the tires, turn it on, and it’ll just go. And it’ll go fast. It’s really a wonderful, wonderful thing,” Lee said, adding that speeds in the Porsche, which is a replica of the model in which Hollywood icon James Dean died, can be “a little scary.”
With the Mustang, Lee is involved in decisions big and small, from what type of shift knob he might like, to whether to retain the solid rear axle.
“I put thought into this, especially when I was driving the car to get to know it,” Lee said. “I ended up thinking that the car wouldn’t be a Mustang anymore if we got rid of the live rear axle, and it turned out that Marc’s design choice was exactly the same.”
When it’s done, the Mustang will be a unique build, and one that Lee says will demand plenty of attention on the car show circuit.
Asked whether he has a third vehicle in mind to convert next, Lee laughed before considering his growing collection and his desire to possibly change over an old pickup truck.
“My wife isn’t around is she?” he said.
Most rewarding aspect of this pursuit: Lee loves that there are serious technical and design aspects of what he’s pursuing. In the case of the current project, he grapples with decisions that impact what it means for the car to still be a Mustang, and feel like a Mustang.
“The thing I’ve always loved about cars, and why I love to work on cars, is you actually finish something,” he said. “That never happens in software. Software’s never done. You might ship it, but you’re still working on it forever.”
Lee is also a believer in the growing business potential of converting classic cars to EV and he thinks it would be a thrill to be involved on the side with a company that’s doing such work.
“The whole idea of beautiful, classic-looking cars that have all the modern conveniences of being EV — I think that’s going to be a bigger and bigger thing,” he said.
The lessons he brings back to work: Lee has wanted to combine his passion around cars with his day job forever. Today, car technology and auto racing have become so technical that he now has fellow researchers at Microsoft who are generally interested as well.
He called cars “a great laboratory” for trying to understand action models — the AI systems designed to predict and determine the next best action an agent (like a robot or software) should take to achieve a specific goal.
At Microsoft Research, advancements in car software provide interesting ways to think about the architecture of an action model or training paradigms, with learnings that could impact what’s happening on your own computer.
“It wouldn’t surprise me if five years from now the ’68 Mustang conversion has more intelligence, more self-drive, more action model, more robotic capabilities,” Lee said. “I think you’ll see those things pop up even in your plain old Windows desktop over time.”
Read more Out of Office profiles.
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