A $5,600 Electric Makeover for Old Diesel Cars

In the early 2000s there was an Italian company in Emilia Romagna doing these combustion → electric makeovers on an industrial scale. Their average customers where municipalities and large businesses (airports, for example) converting their existing fleet of ICE cars into electric vehicles.

They lost most of their businesses around 2012 when Italy passed a bill making all these converted cars not roadworthy without an explicit permit from the original manufacturer, permits that very rarely where granted. (That law got partially overturned in 2017, but the FUD and the chilling effect remain today.)

Source: a friend of mine being laid off by that firm in 2012 + http://mondoelettrico.blogspot.com/search?q=retrofit

This is exactly the kind of thing I wanted to do for common light goods vehicles in the UK - the Vivaro and Trafic vans. They are great apart from the gearboxes, and of course the engines are ICE. You could replace the engine and gearbox with a motor, and there's a HUGE amount of space under the van for a battery pack to give it a good range, with strong mounting onto the chassis possible. Lots of these vans do very little mileage, just working locally - think of the pollution that would be reduced in London, for instance.

The problem was that I priced it up, and it would cost about £20k for a conversion, which obviously isn't going to happen. If you could get it do say £5-7k, then anyone with one of these who's faced with a new gearbox being needed, or needs the injectors replaced and they're seized in place because the scuttle under the windscreen leaks water onto the engine (which can be a £2k + bill) might think it was worth doing.

However, I'm also sure that the insurance situation would need looking at - it's effectively a different vehicle and you've definitely had it modified.

Another one of my pie-in-the-sky ideas, but I'm sure it'll be financially doable at some point, and given that the Vivaro had a 12-year model lifespan and didn't suffer from rust, there are plenty of them about.

I seriously gave thought to doing this exact thing. The problems I was uncomfortable with:

1. when you are working with multiple cars+models it is much harder to scale, every car is its own challenge, as such the operation is likely to remain small

2. customers might expect the rest of the car to also improve which would be problematic when you have to source parts or fix 10 to 15 year old car models

3. every new model you work with is a bit of an experiment, you don't really know whether your configuration is going to cause problems until it does; what worked with another model might not work with this one, in the worst case scenario, people get hurt and you're to blame; if you read any of the 100s of EV conversion blogs, they never get it right the first time round, there's always something that needs rethinking

As a side note, you don't have to buy anything from Tesla to do this. You can furnish yourself a whole package relatively easily from various suppliers. People were doing it before Tesla was even a thing.

From the company pitch: Electrification of thermal city cars : we replace the thermal engine by electrical engine and batteries (100km of autonomy and 110km/h of maximum speed). This autonomy is a engaged choice to avoid oversized car capabilities and avoid reproducing the opulence on lithium-cobalt that we have on oil.[1]

Ah, the good old days of "if you want an electric car, you have to suffer."

This isn't really a company yet, it's a pitch for funding.

It's perfectly possible to convert existing cars to electric drive. Conversion kits exist.[2] Those guys have conversion kits for most early VWs powered by the little four-cylinder opposed engine. Cost is about $17,000 with battery. Which is a used Tesla pack. Unclear why this new conversion is so much cheaper, unless it doesn't include the battery. Other sellers have conversion kits for other vehicles.

The usual result is a rather heavy car with limited range. Also, conversions tend to leave the transmission in the power train and use a DC motor, which is obsolete electric car technology.

[1] https://solarimpulse.com/companies/transition-one

[2] https://www.evwest.com/catalog/index.php?cPath=40

> The whole pack, bought from a Tesla Inc. parts reseller, weighs 120 kilograms (265 pounds).

and here lies the problem. Tesla doesnt (afaik, please correct me) sell their car batteries, those are second hand post crash written off car packs(1). You cant build a scalable (planned 4000 cars a year) business around digging rare parts out of the trash.

(1) going rate for used Model 3 pack is ~$12K with maybe 10-20 available at any time in whole world

I have recently seen this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4CPBHj0UQk a garage in California specialized in changing oldtimer engines to electric engines. They seem to be booked out months in advance.

Another company I have heard from is doing this specifically for supercars, so special Porsches etc.

I feel like both the margin and the clientele would be much more fun to deal with, as with this approach (as many have mentioned) the scaling will be the difficult part.

I aplaude the initiative, but I am skeptical about this.

To convert and ICE car to electric you'll need a battery pack, BCM, inverter, motor, charger, heater core and mounting hardware at minimum. Even if they source all parts from the used market, I doubt they can do it for €5k.

Then there is the practical part. Converting an ICE car to an electric drivetrain messes with weight distribution and crash safety. In most EU countries you'll need to do a full technical inspection to get the car road legal again (even if you used a certified kit). Air conditioning and most gauges in the dashboard will no longer work. And on most modern cars they'll need to do some serious software hacking to get the body control modules to accept the fact that there is no ECU anymore to talk to.

Whether or not this particular venture is successful, retrofitting existing operational cars - especially ones that have a dead engine - is a big part of what we should be doing.

Many families have two vehicles, one of which is primarily used for local tasks. These are ideal to convert if the rest of the car will last for another 5ish years.

Meanwhile, public transport, biking lanes, and other options should continue to be developed. There is never just one solution.

The economics of this are pretty attractive. A VW Golf Diesel would do about 70-80K km for the amount of fuel that about 5000 euros buys. This is assuming 4.8 litres for 100km and a (current) price of 1.38 euro per litre in Germany. I pulled both numbers using Google. In the US Diesel would be cheaper (79 cents according to Google). I'm guessing this excludes taxes that may apply in some states though. But assuming that's correct, in the US, the same amount buys you about 150K km of range.

So, a conversion like this starts earning itself back well within the lifespan of the batteries either way based just on fuel cost savings. Of course if you drive an older Diesel, it would be unlikely to actually last another 150K or have anywhere near the fuel economy of a newer model. Additionally, older cars tend to need expensive maintenance on their engines to keep on going before they finally become to expensive to repair.

Of course the problem is going to be finding batteries. I'd expect this kind of stuff to quickly go from a novelty to being a very common thing. This may drive up prices and limit availability. However, with second hand batteries the value proposition might be quite good still.

My father in law converted an old Chrysler to electric some 10 years ago. It worked great but the car was so old that nobody in the family wanted to drive it.

Here is a picture: https://imgur.com/40ZymUP

He then took the electric parts out to convert a small chevy car but then died before starting that project.

I got into the whole idea of electric conversion a few months ago and came to the conclusion that it's really just not worth the time and money, unless you have a classic car that you really want to make electric just for fun.

There's some great videos out there explaining the process and EVWest sells kits for older VWs and Porches (the ones with the simplest motors and drive trains). https://evwest.com/catalog/

I'd love to swap the engine out of my 2007 Mini Cooper soft-top for an electric motor and zip around town silently with it, but unless I was willing to both spend the equivalent of a new car and do all the work myself, it'll never happen.

There really aren't any electric convertibles out there though, so it's tempting.

disclosure: I work as a professional diesel mechanic for a midwestern chain of shops.

old diesel cars are literally the worst. I wholly endorse anything that will turn a 1986 Mercedes E class from a smog belching iron yacht into a functioning member of polite society. the price quoted here is a steal. take it.

If i were hired to make an old diesel car come up to modern emissions specifications, it would easily be three to five times the cost. Im looking at ripping the engine apart, machining new entry points for sensors, buying a new ECU, finding a place for urea tanks and pumps, and retrofitting a nox scrubber somewhere not to mention the labor charge. the engine will run hotter, so ill need a new radiator or intercooler too. it also has to be retrofitted with a limp or purge mode for when the vehicle runs out of urea or is due for regular service to prevent violating emissions regulations.

When I was a teen (late 1990's) there was a website geared around "kits" for converting small American trucks into all electric. Think Ford Ranger and Chevy S10. I think the "kit" was around $5000. You basically pulled the motor, and installed custom built motor mounts to hold the new large electric motor. There was a custom built adapter that allowed the motor to bolt up to the transmission. Only manual transmissions were supported and the instructions just said to "leave it in 4th gear". Then there was the electronics and wiring for the power and charging circuits. You had to source your own batteries though.

I really wanted to buy the kit but to get any kind of actual range you basically had to fill the bed of the truck up with lead acid batteries. I figured the inefficiency of having to carry around a truck bed full of lead would never catch on and hence electric vehicles would never be a thing so I gave up on the idea...

It's a good thing if it would scale, but I would like to see kits to reduce NOx emissions. It should be far easier to do and scale. After cheating scandals people, like me, are left with the cars that increasingly can't be driven in city centers. What will happen with those cars? They will head east. If such kits would be available one could dream about governments forcing car companies to pay at least significant part of the bill. However with current lobby it seems impossible to get a penny from car companies.

From what I understand those kits would need to tank adblue as trucks do. But whatever, I prefer that to breathing NOx.

I would like to see an initiative like this but with hydrogen fuel cells. I think it would be more complex but more interesting in terms of: certifying road worthiness, since no more dealing with weight of batteries; no lithium-based batteries; more autonomy.

Despite being less efficient in terms of pure energy usage, I think hydrogen-based fuel cell-powered vehicules solve 2 problems for most users: autonomy and time of replenishment (refueling). We just need to invest in solar-based hydrogen generation plants. Hydrogen can be generated on site for replenishment.

These are not the only ones doing stuff like this: I've met a guy with a huge, blue Van (older Mercedes Sprinter?), charging his car at an IKEA in Germany. The ICE was removed and he could go 200km on battery; this was done by a shop/company which do this on a bigger scale for that specific car model (hence he did not have to get a custom certificate for the car, which costs easily as much as a new car).

I had this idea in the back of my head to create an open source electric car based on existing ICE cars and with open source software, mechanics and electronics. That would be awesome if anyone can change/adapt build plans to different cars and if anyone would be able to iteratively improve the each other ideas and cost saving measures.

This is how Rimac started, by electrifying an old BMW E30 and making it the "green monster" https://newatlas.com/old-bmw-worlds-quickest-ev/24594/

The rest is history....

This approach using repurposed Tesla batteries seems more of a proof-of-concept than anything (although that's entirely fair, given they currently produce [probably] the best examples).

However, this is probably the tip of an iceberg to come. There is a huge amount of value worldwide in collectible/exotic/classic cars - values have soared since the '08 financial troubles, to the point of some cars becoming pure investments, rather than something to drive.

As we move towards a world where the ICE will become extinct, what will happen to all of this automotive history? A few options:

* huge devaluation

* exemptions (to the ICE ban) for such cars... but at an increasing cost, as presumably petrol would become increasingly expensive and difficult to source

* widespread drive-train conversions, allowing such cars to be enjoyed in perpetuity

As a point of comparison I have a Renault Twingo, the previous model as the one shown in the article, bought it second or third hand in 2004, the entire car for less than 5000€, so less than the modification here, and it's still working well.

Autonomy is about 500 Km (very small tank) but you never use this for long journeys, so the 100 Km after electrification would not be an issue.

The issue on my car is that there are points of rust in some places and there is a new law that may disqualify my working car from being road worthy the next time I go to the mandatory check. (gotta encourage car turn over for the economy).

If this modification could fix my rust issue (I think it's on the underside of the exhaust pipe so not needed anymore) I could be interested.

As a geek I find this really cool, but as a realist I doubt the impact it can have. To replace ICE cars, the replacement has to be significantly better in some if not most dimensions.

Outside of hobbyist tinkerers / enthusiasts, it’s going to be very difficult for a retrofit to compete with any electric-first design. Just weight distribution alone will be tough, and range is very low, to name a couple of issues.

Yes there is the perceived cost savings here, but I would argue that is a mirage, because over time the consumer will realize that they have made a mistake, and they will have to consider the price they paid as just an expense of learning a lesson. But hey it will surely provide some cool fun and conversation value in the meantime.

"Old diesel cars" aka, cars without all the safety crap that are 100's of kg lighter.

Ironically, there's lots of people that like to restore those older 70's and 80's model diesels because they're light and fuel efficient.

When I researched electric cars in the 80s, before lithium batteries were around, a company was selling kits that transformed a VW Beetle into a lead-acid electric car. The ICE engine could be removed and the electric engine simply bolted into place on the drive plate. The main concern back then was the difficulty of regulating the flow of electricity so that acceleration was smooth, much easier to do nowadays. The big question has to be the safety of batteries stored in spaces not designed for batteries. (Who else thought of Back to the Future and Doc's retrofit on the Delorean?)

There's also possibility for "soft"-electric conversion - add a few kwh lithium battery, remove alternator etc., which might bring reduction in fuel consumption.

This kind of project would be really helpful in developing countries like India. People don't want to spend a lot of money just to save the environment. They will, however, use something like which does not cost much and will return quickly in fuel cost savings. But one has to figure out how to do that on a massive scale, keeping costs down, with thin margins and a lot of capital investment.

Seems like a lot of the viability of this may depend on the amount of engine and transmission connection standardization. If a manufacturer uses the same engine mount and powertrain connections across several models then an electric motor with compatible connections could fit a variety of cars.

So for those who know, is engine standardization still a thing and has it been over the past 10 years?

Funny to see the stock quotes at the end of the article: all mentioned manufacturers are in the +/- 1%, while Tesla is up +6.5%.

Don’t expect traditional manufacturers to enter the retrofitting market though : not interesting at all for them.

They will just prefer to sell new units, still against the « reuse, recycle » more ecological principle, to ensure shareholders’ happiness.

A really obvious alternative to this at a similar cost would be a used Nissan Leaf.

Used non-Tesla EVs depreciate like crazy at extremely low miles. The Chevy Volt is another excellent used value (is this available in Europe?) and you still have a gasoline engine to bail you out on long trips.

You're also going to get way better serviceability with a stock OEM solution.

There was a project in Finland to make an open source kit / conversion as a service. Active around 2007 or so, they made some prototypes. I think the default conversion target was a 2003 Toyota Yaris.

http://www.sahkoautot.fi/eng

I would love to do this on a more modern-ish car, but watching a Rich Rebuilds video on retrofits, this probably is only feasible on older cars because you don't have to interface with any of the electronics in the car, or have HVAC.

“an electric makeover—and offer a cut-price way to avoid driving bans across European cities.”

Lower middle class and low emission zones. People don't have the budget to upgrade their cars and risk losing car mobility. Ask my hippie uncle in his old van. Meanwhile, there's air travel without externalities priced-in, electric vehicle subsidies, home battery subsidies, and more disproportionally benefiting us upper middle class and rich people.

This social problem is all over Western Europe. To those who don't care about social exclusion or global warming, it's free votes, free political capital. So no political consensus forthcoming on how to deal with it...

Since building a car (even an electric one) generates a lot of pollution, this looks like a great solution to modernize the car park at an minimal environmental cost.

What ever happened to Biodiesel?

This is kinda what I've been waiting for when it comes to EVs.

This is great news. To reach climate goals almost all cars need to be electric in under twenty years. That seems quite unrealistic if you want to do it only by replacing them with new cars.

I've been saying for about 5 years now that this is potentially a billion dollar market waiting to happen. Even more so now with many large economies looking at aggressive forced electric car purchases. Congratulations to those guys for getting the business off the ground.

Another potentially massive market will be in making "legacy" cars become autonomous, but that's still unknown as to when that market will really hit off as the technology still isn't there (or approved of by law makers). Still, moving first on that could really be big.

In general I think there is a massive market in old vehicles that isn't been capitalized on. Of course you have scrap, part selling, fixing, etc - but some of these working vehicles (with little wrong) get scrapped for no reason. From a green carbon footprint stand point, a lot of the car's carbon footprint is in making the vehicle itself. When you buy a 10+ year old car I think you're doing more to save the planet, regardless of whether the emissions are higher.