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Comment by aanet | Hacker News Reader

This is encouraging. We need more of these EV retro-fit kits in developing countries, where buying EVs is prohibitively expensive. Obviously, we need a way of safety certifying the kits and the end product as well.

Uruguay is among the most developed countries [1] in South America (2024 nominal GDP per capita: ~$23K; Chile ~$16.5K) with human development index of 0.83 (very high). Yet, the list price of new vehicles is easily 1.5x - 2x that in the US, and EVs are quite out of reach for most residents. (ex: Honda Civic HEV is listed for USD 55K [2])

By offering modestly priced EV retrofit kits, a market need is clearly being met.

- [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Uruguay - [2] https://www.hondauruguay.com/civic-e-hev.html

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we need this in all countries. In fact it's curious that this is not the first priority

Car companies rather sell new cars, than conversion kits and they do have quite a lobby.

It's the same as mobile phones. Most phones have unreplacible batteries, because it's commercially better for their bottom line.

It's not like phones improve sufficiently to justify buying a new one, but the battery lose charge significantly over time.

A car has similar issues. There are only small parts of the car that wears out, and by replacing those parts, the car can be made to function for significantly longer. But modern cars are so complex and intertwined, that it's difficult to just replace worn parts (not to mention difficult to even find those parts available).

Hopefully the conversion to EV cars will resolve some of these problems, but i dont have high hopes. It's not like EV manufacturers are going out of their way to make the car's batteries replacible.

"It's not like EV manufacturers are going out of their way to make the car's batteries replacible"

But since electric cars are mechanically a bit simpler, there are opportunities for small companies willing to disrupt the market or at least find a niche for reliable and easy to fix cars.

> willing to disrupt the market

i doubt it, because the whole platform is controlled by the EV manufacturer, and they can easily prevent it (via software for example). Think inkjet printers.

If EV batteries are to be made replacible, it needs to be mandated by law. And to be honest, i think a car's battery should be replacible (and be easy/convenient to do so) - imagine instead of charging your car, you will drive up to a "gas" station and just replace the current flat batteries with full ones in a few minutes. Think gas stove tanks.

> It's not like phones improve sufficiently to justify buying a new one, but the battery lose charge significantly over time.

A five year old car engine is basically indistinguishable from a brand new car engine; a five year old cellphone chipset is going to have half of the performance and a quarter of the performance per watt as a brand new cellphone.

Five year old car still gets you from place to place, five year old phone still loads your emails, sends texts, places phone calls, etc...

Most people don't use anywhere near their phones full performance

Or their cars, for that matter

This is flagrant with the EU raising import tariffs on Chinese EV.

There is a lot of communication about the climate transition and how electric stuff is needed to save the world, but when cheap options are available from China it's a big no no because it goes against European manufacturers interests.

Exactly. This whole scheme won't work in EU because it's against car manufacturer's interest. The whole of eastern Europe is flooded by second hand German cars and the reason is twofold. First, the western Europe still can afford to change cars every few years, and secondly, the purchase power IMO of the eastern Europe is falling behind so second hand cars look more affordable then buying a new one.

If I were to install an electric motor in my car there is no chance I'm hell that I would be able to make it road legal. Last year I bought homologated Philips LED bulbs for my car to replace crappy incandescent bulbs and the car failed the inspection. "You can't have LED bulbs on a car manufactured with incandescents". Doesn't matter that the beam is completely correct and doesn't blind other drivers, and they have instruments to check it. "It the law, go away".

Have you considered taking the whole vehicle out-of-type and getting all existing parts approved under IVA before giving up?

To be clear, it's both the manufacturer's interests and the interests of European workers. As long as we demand from every person that they earn a living, them using their political power to protect their national industry should be expected. Yes, cheap Chinese EV's are better for the environment, but that's small comfort to all the people employed by European car companies that are getting out-competed who hit the streets as a result.

If we want to start actually tackling climate change we need to unwind this notion that everyone must earn a living because there are simply vast swathes of the economy that are just redundant and do not need to exist.

"If we want to start actually tackling climate change we need to unwind this notion that everyone must earn a living because there are simply vast swathes of the economy that are just redundant and do not need to exist"

Or we start tackling some inbalancies. Why is it so much cheaper to build in china?

(Mainly less regulations and cheaper labour I think)

But if we would be serious about climate change, we would need Chinas and Europes productive capabilities.

subsidies

The given reason that the EU officials provided when they created the tariffs are major subsidizes from the Chinese government.

Of course, I have yet to see a nation with car manufacturing that do not subsidize that industry. Tax breaks, zero interest loans, help with construction/land, and so on. It also suspected/confirmed? that intelligence agencies also helps by providing industry espionage. With them being that involved it seems that tariffs are less about market forces and more about pure politics.

This is useful only in some cases when it's better to keep some of the old stuff. It doesn't make sense to convert a post-2000 car: it would be very inefficient regarding the space use (too much stuff already in, no place for large enough battery, ...), the electricity consumption (those cars have a lot of electronics/ACs not optimised for batteries), and price wise (most of those cars don't cost much today).

It would be much more efficient to create cheap/light EVs: today's focus is mostly on expensive/large EVs with a huge lot of accessories/screens/... because that's where the money is for regular car brands. But if one make could build something like a Willys Jeep EV, or a least something like an early-90s small car that didn't have all of todays gadgets (Renault Twingo, Mini, Volkswagen Coccinelle, ...), they would be much more useful for those markets.

Another problem is still electricity grid: in a lot of countries, it's not up-to a large scale EV deployment.

Agree but with the logic that "all types" need to be made.

There is a very good market for a car for city dwellers, especially as a second car for them. Many families have two cars (get over it, that's reality), but I often see them buy that second car as an EV, keeping a gas guzzler to assuage range fears.

This is an excellent opportunity for that small, 100km range, low tech as you say car. Just batteries, motor. Just for local jaunts. Perfect.

I could do a commuter car with even a 50 km range, if it was cheap enough. But since I need a heater and air conditioner, and modern safety regulations are what they are, there’s very little chance that it can be made cheaply enough.

"But if one make could build something like a Willys Jeep EV"

Look up electric mini moke. Exactly what you are describing. Rich man's toy mind. If there's a Chinese knock off it could be very cheap though.

And here comes the transparent children of EVs: Mitsubishi i-MiEV and Nissan LEAF.

This phenomenon is not so surprising considering that the sole point of existence of Tesla was basically to give the middle finger to those and the Prius, but they exactly fit the criteria of mass market EVs precisely by the letters.

Especially the i-MiEV(pronounced eye-meeve). It was a Kei car!

I can only say that I'd be a customer for this. I'd much rather electrify my old car than throw it away to buy a brand new car with a ton of features (and anti-features [1]) that I don't want.

If somebody sold a cheap, mostly-analog electric car I'd probably buy it. But they probably never will in the US.

[1] https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/privacynotincluded/article...

I doubt this is economically feasible in high-wage countries (like Germany). Yes, EVs are expensive, but having a car completely transformed (plus certifcations and the cost of the transformation kit itself) will be even more expensive.

There are a few companies doing it in EU but most of them are focusing on premium classic cars.

For some of those, especially sports car, it can look as a sacrilege but I would have no issue converting say, a Bentley, Rolls Royce or Jaguar/Daimler coach to electric. These used to be built to transport rich people in total comfort, you don't need a smelly, noisy engine on them anyway.

Exactly what I mean - car freaks (if they are not "combustion engine freaks") with enough disposable income surely love this. But it's not a feasible way to transform the individual transport sector to a greener footprint.

I wonder how these conversion kits affect safety. These cars are crash-tested at a specific weight distribution. Adding lots of batteries make the car behave different besides being a fire hazard. I would expect that converted cars need to be inspected thoroughly before being allowed on the road.

People already convert gasoline to gas. Weight can be added

Hard disagree. It does not make sense in most nations with higher skilled labor wages. It makes no financial sense especially considering you would be spending a hefty premium on top of the vehicle itself. Better for that ICE to live its useful life as it is.

The issue for the cars owners is that it become harder to sell the car later, exactly because of this transformation. So you basically transform it and drive until it dies (which is not bad from my POV), but that is something that make people think twice before doing it.

> Yet, the list price of new vehicles is easily 1.5x - 2x that in the US

I'm assuming this is because of taxes or import tariffs, or something similarly self-imposed?

Yes. Substantial taxes on imports for vehicles from outside Mercosur, also taxes based on engine size and a few other parameters.

Genius. Incentivize economic production in industries where you have less comparative advantage. A common story of contribution to poverty in SA, although to be fair Uruguay is better than most others on the continent.

How do you build that comparative advantage though? You think Japan or South Korea didn't have protectionist policies until they figured out how to produce such things competitively?

Precisely. The theory of comparative advantage literally says "you can't finance e.g. industrialization by the market means, it's strictly and highly unprofitable, no entrepreneur in their right mind would (or even could) do this", yet somehow people routinely tout it as a decisive argument for laissez-faire.

And Japan's history of the state support for its automotive industry is quite something.

This got to be negligible next to corruption and the cost of being small countries (more prone to market failures, small import/export traffic, brain drain).

I'm Uruguayan and this drives me crazy. Specially for products that are also tools for industries where we can and do compete. Buying a computer in Uruguay costs about twice as much as in the US.

If this is all self imposed by tariffs, which as far as I know it is, what industry are the tariffs really defending? Certainly not Uruguayan electronics manufacturers, there aren't any. The only people that I imagine benefit are customs officers and companies that import stuff to sell in Uruguay. There isn't any new capability to build things that the country gets in return. We learn from exporting talent instead.

And if we want to compete we need to do it globally. Our market is too small, the population is ~3M.

>The only people that I imagine benefit are customs officers and companies that import stuff to sell in Uruguay.

How do high tariffs help importing companies? Wouldn't they be able to sell more (and thus import more) if the end prices to the consumer were lower?

Fair point, I might be mistaken. But I think there are lots of small resellers that wouldn't exist if buying online from abroad was as seamless and risk free as buying online locally through mercado libre. The real problem is the requirement of contacting a customs officer to import anything above 200usd, and the risk of having the product stopped by customs. The resellers value is in saving you that bureaucracy by doing it in bulk. And in practice, because of the small market, it greatly reduces the variety of products on offer.

> We need more of these EV retro-fit kits in developing countries

why? fossil fuels will remain economical for at least 100 more years.

What do you mean by "economical"?

EV already beats ICE in some dimensions of economy.

10 year TCO for a barebones Prius is lower than TCO for an EV, when counting things like battery replacement and charger installation.

Most cars can't dream of being anywhere near as efficient as a Prius. But yes if you can get your gasoline spending under $1000/year then you can probably match or beat electric. Throwing US averages at a calculator says an equivalently priced Leaf would have $200 less in fuel costs per year compared to the Prius getting 57 mpg. At that point it's up to the random maintenance costs.

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