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A $5,600 Electric Makeover for Old Diesel Cars

254 points by rihegher 7y ago

beautifulfreak 7y ago
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?)
adrianN 7y ago
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.
- ascar 7y ago
  Or the fuel used by ECU engines gets created from the CO2 in the air and carbon neutral energy. Seems easier to achieve than replacing all cars with low range models that need a charging spot at home. And the EV also only make a difference, if they use carbon free energy. It's more efficient to power your car with oil directly than to burn the oil for electricity and then power your car with that. Imho EV's are a much overstated solution to a much deeper problem. EV's make little difference, if we are still running coal, gas and oil power plants to generate the electricity. It's just that our cars are a more visible problem in every day life. If we had an abundance of carbon neutral energy and make fossil oil more expensive (e.g. through taxes) than renewable burnables, ICU engines would be our smallest problem.
  - adrianN 7y ago
    While it's possible to create fuel from thin air and electricity, the energy efficiency is abysmal compared to electric cars. We likely don't have enough room for wind turbines and solar panels to do it at scale.
  - inflatableDodo 7y ago
    Ignoring climate change for a second and looking at things from a public health perspective, electric vehicles give you much cleaner air, even if you don't generate the electricity with carbon neutral tech. We should be converting vehicles to electric anyway, as vehicle fumes kill a hell of a lot of people. Large utility generation is far more efficient than small combustion engines and it is much easier to scrub the exhaust.
  - llukas 7y ago
    > It's more efficient to power your car with oil directly than to burn the oil for electricity and then power your car with that. Please run numbers and you may be surprised.
    - ascar 7y ago
      I was actually surprised by most sources I found online. But all top hits on Google start off at the charger and ignore any efficiency losses for generating the electricity in the first place. Some even acknowledge that fact in text, but still avoid calculations. If we go from 46.4 MJ/kg energy in 1 liter of gasoline and apply the usual density of about 0.75kg/l, that's 34.8MJ/kg. At 3.6 MJ per kwH that's ~9.7kwH/l. A modern car uses about 6l gasoline per 100km, so 60kwH per 100km. A Tesla Model S uses about 20kwH per 100km. So a modern ICE car is about 1/3 as efficient as a Tesla Model S. But if we go from my argument, that we currently still burn oil to provide more electricity and adding more energy consumers to the network only delays the reduction of burning fossil fuels for electricity, we need to take into account the efficiency of fossil power plants. An oil power plant runs at about 45% efficiency. Lets ignore transport and charging losses, as transporting gasoline isn't exactly free either. That takes the Tesla up to 45 kwH/100km. So that's actually still a 25% efficiency gain towards the ICE car, which I didn't expect. To get the full picture however, we would have to add the 65.000kwH of energy used to build a 100kwH battery pack (upscaled based on [1]). A (estimated) 10kg steel gasoline tank takes maybe 200kwH of energy to manufacture (based on 50GJ/1000kg of steel and some adds for other stuff that needs to be done). Even if I'm off by an order of magnitude on the steel tank, that's still an energy difference worth north of 100.000km (i.e. more than most cars travel in their lifetime or another at least 50% effiency loss for the EV). I still wonder if the 25% efficiency gain outweights the cost of the battery production and the cost of adding a large scale charging network to support the broad adoption of electricle vehicles. Or, to rephrase my original argument, if we are better off taking the additional ~50% efficiency loss in converting energy to fuels and focus on expanding our carbon neutral energy production, shutting of fossil power plants and investing more in fusion energy so that might become a reality and we can create an abundance of energy to work with. [1] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/316884465_Manufacturing_energy_analysis_of_lithium_ion_battery_pack_for_electric_vehicles https://www.researchgate.net/publication/316884465_Manufactu...
  - hokkos 7y ago
    This startup is in France with a 44gCO2eq/kWh electricity using 6gCO2eq/kWh nuclear electricity. Here EV emit 80% less than desiel car when you consider their whole life cycle.
    - ascar 7y ago
      My understanding could definitely be off here, but according to the official EU energy report (2018 report, 2016 numbers) [1] France is still consuming about 45% of fossil fuels, while whole Europe is around 70%. Further the energy network is connected throughout Europe and nuclear is great at providing base capacity, but not easy to scale up quickly and at least Germany is completely exiting nuclear fission. That's why we're using coal/gas/oil power plants for that. So, when we are adding additional energy consumption to the network in the form of (many) EV, it will not charge with nuclear power, but more likely that we need to burn fossil fuel to keep the network up. [1] https://publications.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publication/99fc30eb-c06d-11e8-9893-01aa75ed71a1/language-en/format-PDF/source-77059768 https://publications.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publi...
- saalweachter 7y ago
  Hmmm, I think you might actually be right, in terms of how long it takes to replace all existing cars. In the US, it looks like the average passenger car is 11.6 years old. Since that's the average, even optimistically, there are probably a LOT of 15+ year old cars on the road. So you probably need to have all new cars sold in the US be electric within 5 years to have a more-or-less complete turnover within 20 years. (The figures for non-pickup trucks are even worse, with 17 years being the AVERAGE.)
russellbeattie 7y ago
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/ 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.
- Animats 7y ago
  As a fun project, it makes more sense. It will make even more sense once the battery market gets going. Battery factories bigger than Tesla's are under construction in China and Germany. We'll probably have a battery glut in a few years. It's not really that hard to build a battery factory.
- benj111 7y ago
  "There really aren't any electric convertibles out there though" https://www.topgear.com/car-news/concept/morgans-cyclops-electric-3-wheeler https://www.topgear.com/car-news/concept/morgans-cyclops-ele...
- clouddrover 7y ago
  > unless you have a classic car that you really want to make electric just for fun You'll have to do the conversion if you want to keep driving the car as cities and eventually whole countries ban ICE vehicles. Aston Martin has an EV conversion program for that reason: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PREftlfZuXA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PREftlfZuXA https://media.astonmartin.com/aston-martin-works-create-first-reversible-ev-powertrain-conceptnbsp/ https://media.astonmartin.com/aston-martin-works-create-firs... It'd be best to leave it for as long as possible in order to get the best batteries available at the time. A EV conversion with a solid-state battery pack might offer some practical range.
rasz 7y ago
> 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
- sgt 7y ago
  My thoughts exactly. Are they expecting investors to look past this obvious fact? I assume their business model will start working once batteries become significantly cheaper in the next 2-3 years (optimistic).
  - dotancohen 7y ago
    When batteries become significantly cheaper in the next 2-3 years, there will be many companies entering this market. But only one (this one) with 2-3 years of experience in the market. That is a huge advantage.
- nexuist 7y ago
  >You cant build a scalable (planned 4000 cars a year) business around digging rare parts out of the trash No, but it should bootstrap you enough capital to be able to do your own R&D and develop your own battery pack, or at the very least enter into talks with manufacturers to lease existing battery packs for your business. Also, Tesla is making ~5,000 cars a week. Of those 5,000, 77 have to crash and be written off (1.5%) for there to be enough battery packs for 4,000 cars a year. Not considering the 100,000+ Teslas on the road already.
  - kosievdmerwe 7y ago
    4000 * 5600 = 22.4 million. This is revenue, so rent, parts and labor will significantly reduce that. I'm not sure how this would result in a good R&D budget. As for getting supplies from written off Teslas, it doesn't take into account location. What percentage is in Europe within a economically viable shipping distance?
MaanuAir 7y ago
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.
- navigatesol 7y ago
  >not interesting at all for them. Or perhaps "not the business they're in"? >all mentioned manufacturers are in the +/- 1%, while Tesla is up +6.5%. Not sure what you mean here.
- King-Aaron 7y ago
  > Don’t expect traditional manufacturers to enter the retrofitting market though I don't know, you might see it happen down the track. Currently the large manufacturers like Chevrolet, Ford, etc offer 'crate engine' products for retrofitting into older/other vehicles. No reason you may not see them offer an electric crate package in the same way you can get a LSA crate package. Granted, it's not like a 'plug and play' proposition - some DIY is required - but still, I don't think it's too big of a stretch to imagine it. https://www.chevrolet.com/performance/crate-engines/lsa https://www.chevrolet.com/performance/crate-engines/lsa
- tumetab1 7y ago
  > 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%. Tesla is a speculative stock. Tesla almost all quarters generates losses while the other makers are "regular business" with varying profits. > Don’t expect traditional manufacturers to enter the retrofitting market though : not interesting at all for them. No car brand is selling kits for retrofitting. Regarding car parts Tesla is worse than most car makers. Most Tesla parts are salvaged instead of sold. > They will just prefer to sell new units, still against the « reuse, recycle » more ecological principle, to ensure shareholders’ happiness. All USA public traded business are mandate as such. Companies which seek to prioritize ecology over profits need to stay of the public traded stock market.
lumberjack 7y ago
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.
- bradknowles 7y ago
  I hav some friends here in the Austin area that have a company doing this. And yes, it’s all custom one-off work for each car. My most vivid memory is climbing into the “frunk” of a Porsche that was owned by a famous cardiologist, and measuring the heater core slot so that we could make our own heater core enclosure to fit for an electric unit we bought. And I took very careful and accurate measurements and very carefully applied them to sheet metal on the hand brake press. Only to discover that I had not accounted for the thickness of the metal or the enforced bend radius, and so the finished unit was off by about a millimeter and wouldn’t fit. I tried to convince them that they should partner with certain kit car companies, buying only the non-BEV components from them, much the way Tesla started out with Lotus. But that never went anywhere, and I haven’t heard from them since. I need to get back in touch with them....
  - bradknowles 7y ago
    BTW, the biggest issue they found in doing conversions is doing the electrical wiring work according to code. When there is a crash and the emergency rescue team has to use the “jaws of life” to cut the car open, you want to make damn sure they won’t be cutting through any of your high-amperage cabling. And if you are converting an ICE car to BEV, you don’t want to surprise them by routing your power cables through unexpected places. When they see a certain model of car, they are going to expect to be able to cut through in certain manufacturer-approved locations. You don’t want to risk killing the guys who are trying to save your life.
Animats 7y ago
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 https://solarimpulse.com/companies/transition-one [2] https://www.evwest.com/catalog/index.php?cPath=40 https://www.evwest.com/catalog/index.php?cPath=40
- bradknowles 7y ago
  This package doesn’t include the battery pack — that’s a separate leased item.
- lumberjack 7y ago
  100km range fits the commuting needs of 95% of the people in western Europe. In any case, the target demographic is likely not wealthy, so for them, less range for less money would be ideal. Plus, the smaller the battery the easier it is to fit, meaning less potential problems later on. Particularly important because these cars won't be crash tested.
  - xiphias2 7y ago
    ,,100km range fits the commuting needs of 95% of the people in western Europe’’ More like 95% of commuting needs of 95% of the people. As local transport is quite good, vacation is the more important and harder to substitute part of the car need.
fencepost 7y ago
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?
- jobigoud 7y ago
  It could still be viable even if it's only for a small subset of models, because the target market is quite specific. It is for city cars of the previous generation.
LeonM 7y ago
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.
- Reason077 7y ago
  To address the later points (regulatory certification, ECU compatibility, etc), I think the point here is that they're designing kits to target specific popular models so that much of the work only needs to be done once per model. Once you have designed a set of compatible, tested parts, doing the conversion on a lot of similar vehicles becomes faster and cheaper compared to developing a bespoke solution each time. Not sure if they actually replace the ECU or just fake the missing inputs to keep the existing one happy. Either way, I'm sure they retain existing wiring and keep all the dashboard gauges working.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - LeonM 7y ago
    > I think the point here is that they're designing kits to target specific popular models so that much of the work only needs to be done once per model. I wasn't talking about type approval. In most EU countries (at least Germany and the Netherlands that I'm sure of) you need to pass through technical inspection if you modify a car. Especially if you change the fuel type or change the power output of the vehicle. > I'm sure they retain existing wiring and keep all the dashboard gauges working. Most gauges are no longer applicable (coolant temp, oil pressure, fuel level) or display the wrong range (the tachometer for instance).
pvsukale3 7y ago
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.
- bahularora 7y ago
  These guys https://etrio.in/ https://etrio.in/ are doing it already and they are also ARAI approved so you are road legal too.
freshfey 7y ago
I have recently seen this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4CPBHj0UQk 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.
- consumer451 7y ago
  For anyone interested, the "garage in California" is EV West. Here are three more in-depth videos from the wonderful Fully Charged channel about EV West: EV West - in general: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOx5uCufB2Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOx5uCufB2Q EV West - BMW M3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHaqiWcWSIc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHaqiWcWSIc EV West - VW Bus: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLRAQu0b8-o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLRAQu0b8-o
djaychela 7y ago
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.
- jdboyd 7y ago
  I wonder what that £20k would turn in to if you could commit to your suppliers that you would be buying a thousand units worth? What about only 100 units worth?
  - ChrisRR 7y ago
    I would guess that it's mostly labour. Unless you could get a fleet of identical cars or vans, then every vehicle is going to be a bespoke job, slowing things down.
    - karambahh 7y ago
      Trafic/Vivaro are the same car, jointly produced by Open/Vauxhall & Renault so economies of scale could be found. https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renault_Trafic_III_-_Fiat_Talento_II_-_Nissan_NV300_-_Opel_Vivaro_II https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renault_Trafic_III_-_Fiat_Tale...
gioele 7y ago
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 http://mondoelettrico.blogspot.com/search?q=retrofit
- nudpiedo 7y ago
  I don't often believe conspiracies, but I cannot understand these sort of things... what was the justification for such law? security? Industry protectionism?
  - seniorivn 7y ago
    It seams you forgot to list stupidity and as one of the reasons
  - FrojoS 7y ago
    You don’t have to believe in conspiracies. It‘s likely just lobbying and corruption.
    - bryanrasmussen 7y ago
      Isn't the conjoining of lobbying and corruption generally known as 'a conspiracy'?
      - hanniabu 7y ago
        It's known as US capitalism
jillesvangurp 7y ago
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.
- sveme 7y ago
  Electricity is not free, though, so you would have to subtract the price for electricity from your consideration.
  - jillesvangurp 7y ago
    True. A number I've heard for Teslas is 4.4 mile per kwh. So, a 150km is about 100000 miles (nice round number) and lets round down the milage to 4. So we are talking 25000 kwh. It depends on where you get your power of course or whether you have your own solar panels but at 10 cents per kwh that would be 2500$ So about half the price. That would be on the expensive side and things get more interesting if you have access to cheaper sources of energy. E.g. bids for solar power plants are below 2 cents now so that cuts it down to about 500$.
- Ididntdothis 7y ago
  Why do so many people think that electricity is free?
jobigoud 7y ago
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.
- semi-extrinsic 7y ago
  FYI rusted exhaust pipes can often be mended (at least for a while) using exhaust bandages. It's a cheap DIY low-risk fix. Random manufacturer: https://www.holtsauto.com/holts/products/gun-gum-silencer-repair-bandage/ https://www.holtsauto.com/holts/products/gun-gum-silencer-re...
markvdb 7y ago
“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...
y04nn 7y ago
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.
mft_ 7y ago
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
- akadruid1 7y ago
  For high value collectables "reversable conversion" is likely to become common. Aston Martin offers a service to replace the ICE with a electric power unit with equivalent power. The ICE gets packed into a flight case in case you want to swap back in the future. Here's an account of £1.3 million DB6 Volante conversion: https://www.topgear.com/car-news/electric/why-heck-would-you-convert-ps13m-aston-electric-power https://www.topgear.com/car-news/electric/why-heck-would-you...
- rbf 7y ago
  Or synthetically generated fuels (eg audi e-diesel, which is a diesel, but I think a petrol equivalent can be generated), which can be done today, but are very costly for general use. I don't think the cost of fuel for a classic car will be a huge issue even if it is very high (10x of todays cost).
  - mft_ 7y ago
    > I don't think the cost of fuel for a classic car will be a huge issue even if it is very high (10x of todays cost). Not sure about that. Let's consider a generic classic car that delivers 25 miles per (UK Imperial) gallon, which is 5.5 miles per liter of petrol. At the moment, petrol is ~1.3-1.5 EUR/liter in central Europe. Taking a mean of 1.4 EUR/L, that's ~25 cents/mile, or 4 miles/EUR. A 200 mile trip (say, a weekend away) would cost ~51 EUR - not too bad. 3000 miles in a year would cost ~764 EUR. --- Now, consider 10x the cost. 510 EUR in fuel, just for a weekend away? 7640 EUR for a year's occasional cruising around? Accepted that's no problem for the super-rich, but it starts to be punitive for a hobbyist owner. What about if you're into American classics that deliver 10 MPG? Further, with that cost for fuel, the economics of a conversion make a lot more sense, before you even consider other possible incentives.
archi42 7y ago
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).
cesis 7y ago
There's also possibility for "soft"-electric conversion - add a few kwh lithium battery, remove alternator etc., which might bring reduction in fuel consumption.
Gravityloss 7y ago
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 http://www.sahkoautot.fi/eng
bewilderbeast 7y ago
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.
- serpix 7y ago
  You will need batteries with hydrogen fuel cells due to the fact the cells do not throttle quickly based on energy demand. The battery is required as a buffer for quickly discharging larger amounts of energy. So in effect you require a full blown electric drive train but with a smaller battery. In my opinion it is way less complex to just increase the size of the battery and get rid off the hydrogen parts.
  - bewilderbeast 7y ago
    The biggest problem with full electric powertrains is size of batteries and its weight. Keeping the size of batteries small and weighing less is a bonus in ICE car conversions, like I mentioned in my initial comment. Plus better replenishing time, which in most hydrogen fuel cells cars is around 3 minutes. Edit: the Riversimple Rasa uses a hybrid lithium based battery/supercapacitor pack for this purpose.
    - rbf 7y ago
      I see people talking about refuellig time of hydrogen beein an advantage. Although most videoes I see on youtube seem to use ~10ish minutes - and it depends if the pumps has the correct pressure). Recharging an electric car is usually done in a few seconds of active time (plugging in the cable when you park), only if you exhaust the range during one trip you have to wait for recharging.
bArray 7y ago
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.
motorcyclediari 7y ago
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EamonnMR 7y ago
This is kinda what I've been waiting for when it comes to EVs.
blunte 7y ago
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.
hawski 7y ago
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.
RmDen 7y ago
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/ https://newatlas.com/old-bmw-worlds-quickest-ev/24594/ The rest is history....
barbecue_sauce 7y ago
What ever happened to Biodiesel?
- blacksmith_tb 7y ago
  Well, it's widely added (in small percentages) to regular diesels, mostly due to its cleaning properties. Even if you run 100% bio it still produces large amounts of PM2.5 pollution (less NOX than regular diesels, but that isn't none). And there's plenty of evidence that unless it was produced from non-food crops it's more less using food that should go to people to run your engine. I am happy to have switched from a TDI running 100% to a PHEV.
linuxftw 7y ago
"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.
pier25 7y ago
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 https://imgur.com/40ZymUP He then took the electric parts out to convert a small chevy car but then died before starting that project.
- tk75x 7y ago
  That's a handsome car, from what is visible in the photo. I would drive it.
  - pier25 7y ago
    It's not that it was ugly, but it was very uncomfortable, everything creaked, the wheel was super hard, no AC, etc...
natch 7y ago
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.
turtlebits 7y ago
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.
esaym 7y ago
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...
on_and_off 7y ago
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.
dangus 7y ago
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.
nimbius 7y ago
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.
- egorfine 7y ago
  > buying a new ECU This is not an option for older Merc engines, no practical options exists. Or I would be gladly stand corrected in this matter as I own quite a few old collectible Mercs all in desperate need of modern technology update (invisible of course, like ECU + EFI).

254 points by rihegher 7y ago

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?)

adrianN 7y ago

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.

ascar 7y ago
Or the fuel used by ECU engines gets created from the CO2 in the air and carbon neutral energy. Seems easier to achieve than replacing all cars with low range models that need a charging spot at home. And the EV also only make a difference, if they use carbon free energy. It's more efficient to power your car with oil directly than to burn the oil for electricity and then power your car with that. Imho EV's are a much overstated solution to a much deeper problem. EV's make little difference, if we are still running coal, gas and oil power plants to generate the electricity. It's just that our cars are a more visible problem in every day life. If we had an abundance of carbon neutral energy and make fossil oil more expensive (e.g. through taxes) than renewable burnables, ICU engines would be our smallest problem.
- adrianN 7y ago
  While it's possible to create fuel from thin air and electricity, the energy efficiency is abysmal compared to electric cars. We likely don't have enough room for wind turbines and solar panels to do it at scale.
- inflatableDodo 7y ago
  Ignoring climate change for a second and looking at things from a public health perspective, electric vehicles give you much cleaner air, even if you don't generate the electricity with carbon neutral tech. We should be converting vehicles to electric anyway, as vehicle fumes kill a hell of a lot of people. Large utility generation is far more efficient than small combustion engines and it is much easier to scrub the exhaust.
- llukas 7y ago
  > It's more efficient to power your car with oil directly than to burn the oil for electricity and then power your car with that. Please run numbers and you may be surprised.
  - ascar 7y ago
    I was actually surprised by most sources I found online. But all top hits on Google start off at the charger and ignore any efficiency losses for generating the electricity in the first place. Some even acknowledge that fact in text, but still avoid calculations. If we go from 46.4 MJ/kg energy in 1 liter of gasoline and apply the usual density of about 0.75kg/l, that's 34.8MJ/kg. At 3.6 MJ per kwH that's ~9.7kwH/l. A modern car uses about 6l gasoline per 100km, so 60kwH per 100km. A Tesla Model S uses about 20kwH per 100km. So a modern ICE car is about 1/3 as efficient as a Tesla Model S. But if we go from my argument, that we currently still burn oil to provide more electricity and adding more energy consumers to the network only delays the reduction of burning fossil fuels for electricity, we need to take into account the efficiency of fossil power plants. An oil power plant runs at about 45% efficiency. Lets ignore transport and charging losses, as transporting gasoline isn't exactly free either. That takes the Tesla up to 45 kwH/100km. So that's actually still a 25% efficiency gain towards the ICE car, which I didn't expect. To get the full picture however, we would have to add the 65.000kwH of energy used to build a 100kwH battery pack (upscaled based on [1]). A (estimated) 10kg steel gasoline tank takes maybe 200kwH of energy to manufacture (based on 50GJ/1000kg of steel and some adds for other stuff that needs to be done). Even if I'm off by an order of magnitude on the steel tank, that's still an energy difference worth north of 100.000km (i.e. more than most cars travel in their lifetime or another at least 50% effiency loss for the EV). I still wonder if the 25% efficiency gain outweights the cost of the battery production and the cost of adding a large scale charging network to support the broad adoption of electricle vehicles. Or, to rephrase my original argument, if we are better off taking the additional ~50% efficiency loss in converting energy to fuels and focus on expanding our carbon neutral energy production, shutting of fossil power plants and investing more in fusion energy so that might become a reality and we can create an abundance of energy to work with. [1] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/316884465_Manufacturing_energy_analysis_of_lithium_ion_battery_pack_for_electric_vehicles https://www.researchgate.net/publication/316884465_Manufactu...
- hokkos 7y ago
  This startup is in France with a 44gCO2eq/kWh electricity using 6gCO2eq/kWh nuclear electricity. Here EV emit 80% less than desiel car when you consider their whole life cycle.
  - ascar 7y ago
    My understanding could definitely be off here, but according to the official EU energy report (2018 report, 2016 numbers) [1] France is still consuming about 45% of fossil fuels, while whole Europe is around 70%. Further the energy network is connected throughout Europe and nuclear is great at providing base capacity, but not easy to scale up quickly and at least Germany is completely exiting nuclear fission. That's why we're using coal/gas/oil power plants for that. So, when we are adding additional energy consumption to the network in the form of (many) EV, it will not charge with nuclear power, but more likely that we need to burn fossil fuel to keep the network up. [1] https://publications.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publication/99fc30eb-c06d-11e8-9893-01aa75ed71a1/language-en/format-PDF/source-77059768 https://publications.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publi...
saalweachter 7y ago
Hmmm, I think you might actually be right, in terms of how long it takes to replace all existing cars. In the US, it looks like the average passenger car is 11.6 years old. Since that's the average, even optimistically, there are probably a LOT of 15+ year old cars on the road. So you probably need to have all new cars sold in the US be electric within 5 years to have a more-or-less complete turnover within 20 years. (The figures for non-pickup trucks are even worse, with 17 years being the AVERAGE.)

russellbeattie 7y ago

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/ 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.

Animats 7y ago
As a fun project, it makes more sense. It will make even more sense once the battery market gets going. Battery factories bigger than Tesla's are under construction in China and Germany. We'll probably have a battery glut in a few years. It's not really that hard to build a battery factory.
benj111 7y ago
"There really aren't any electric convertibles out there though" https://www.topgear.com/car-news/concept/morgans-cyclops-electric-3-wheeler https://www.topgear.com/car-news/concept/morgans-cyclops-ele...
clouddrover 7y ago
> unless you have a classic car that you really want to make electric just for fun You'll have to do the conversion if you want to keep driving the car as cities and eventually whole countries ban ICE vehicles. Aston Martin has an EV conversion program for that reason: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PREftlfZuXA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PREftlfZuXA https://media.astonmartin.com/aston-martin-works-create-first-reversible-ev-powertrain-conceptnbsp/ https://media.astonmartin.com/aston-martin-works-create-firs... It'd be best to leave it for as long as possible in order to get the best batteries available at the time. A EV conversion with a solid-state battery pack might offer some practical range.

rasz 7y ago

> 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

sgt 7y ago
My thoughts exactly. Are they expecting investors to look past this obvious fact? I assume their business model will start working once batteries become significantly cheaper in the next 2-3 years (optimistic).
- dotancohen 7y ago
  When batteries become significantly cheaper in the next 2-3 years, there will be many companies entering this market. But only one (this one) with 2-3 years of experience in the market. That is a huge advantage.
nexuist 7y ago
>You cant build a scalable (planned 4000 cars a year) business around digging rare parts out of the trash No, but it should bootstrap you enough capital to be able to do your own R&D and develop your own battery pack, or at the very least enter into talks with manufacturers to lease existing battery packs for your business. Also, Tesla is making ~5,000 cars a week. Of those 5,000, 77 have to crash and be written off (1.5%) for there to be enough battery packs for 4,000 cars a year. Not considering the 100,000+ Teslas on the road already.
- kosievdmerwe 7y ago
  4000 * 5600 = 22.4 million. This is revenue, so rent, parts and labor will significantly reduce that. I'm not sure how this would result in a good R&D budget. As for getting supplies from written off Teslas, it doesn't take into account location. What percentage is in Europe within a economically viable shipping distance?

MaanuAir 7y ago

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.

navigatesol 7y ago
>not interesting at all for them. Or perhaps "not the business they're in"? >all mentioned manufacturers are in the +/- 1%, while Tesla is up +6.5%. Not sure what you mean here.
King-Aaron 7y ago
> Don’t expect traditional manufacturers to enter the retrofitting market though I don't know, you might see it happen down the track. Currently the large manufacturers like Chevrolet, Ford, etc offer 'crate engine' products for retrofitting into older/other vehicles. No reason you may not see them offer an electric crate package in the same way you can get a LSA crate package. Granted, it's not like a 'plug and play' proposition - some DIY is required - but still, I don't think it's too big of a stretch to imagine it. https://www.chevrolet.com/performance/crate-engines/lsa https://www.chevrolet.com/performance/crate-engines/lsa
tumetab1 7y ago
> 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%. Tesla is a speculative stock. Tesla almost all quarters generates losses while the other makers are "regular business" with varying profits. > Don’t expect traditional manufacturers to enter the retrofitting market though : not interesting at all for them. No car brand is selling kits for retrofitting. Regarding car parts Tesla is worse than most car makers. Most Tesla parts are salvaged instead of sold. > They will just prefer to sell new units, still against the « reuse, recycle » more ecological principle, to ensure shareholders’ happiness. All USA public traded business are mandate as such. Companies which seek to prioritize ecology over profits need to stay of the public traded stock market.

lumberjack 7y ago

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.

bradknowles 7y ago
I hav some friends here in the Austin area that have a company doing this. And yes, it’s all custom one-off work for each car. My most vivid memory is climbing into the “frunk” of a Porsche that was owned by a famous cardiologist, and measuring the heater core slot so that we could make our own heater core enclosure to fit for an electric unit we bought. And I took very careful and accurate measurements and very carefully applied them to sheet metal on the hand brake press. Only to discover that I had not accounted for the thickness of the metal or the enforced bend radius, and so the finished unit was off by about a millimeter and wouldn’t fit. I tried to convince them that they should partner with certain kit car companies, buying only the non-BEV components from them, much the way Tesla started out with Lotus. But that never went anywhere, and I haven’t heard from them since. I need to get back in touch with them....
- bradknowles 7y ago
  BTW, the biggest issue they found in doing conversions is doing the electrical wiring work according to code. When there is a crash and the emergency rescue team has to use the “jaws of life” to cut the car open, you want to make damn sure they won’t be cutting through any of your high-amperage cabling. And if you are converting an ICE car to BEV, you don’t want to surprise them by routing your power cables through unexpected places. When they see a certain model of car, they are going to expect to be able to cut through in certain manufacturer-approved locations. You don’t want to risk killing the guys who are trying to save your life.

Animats 7y ago

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 https://solarimpulse.com/companies/transition-one [2] https://www.evwest.com/catalog/index.php?cPath=40 https://www.evwest.com/catalog/index.php?cPath=40

bradknowles 7y ago
This package doesn’t include the battery pack — that’s a separate leased item.
lumberjack 7y ago
100km range fits the commuting needs of 95% of the people in western Europe. In any case, the target demographic is likely not wealthy, so for them, less range for less money would be ideal. Plus, the smaller the battery the easier it is to fit, meaning less potential problems later on. Particularly important because these cars won't be crash tested.
- xiphias2 7y ago
  ,,100km range fits the commuting needs of 95% of the people in western Europe’’ More like 95% of commuting needs of 95% of the people. As local transport is quite good, vacation is the more important and harder to substitute part of the car need.

fencepost 7y ago

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?

jobigoud 7y ago
It could still be viable even if it's only for a small subset of models, because the target market is quite specific. It is for city cars of the previous generation.

LeonM 7y ago

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.

Reason077 7y ago
To address the later points (regulatory certification, ECU compatibility, etc), I think the point here is that they're designing kits to target specific popular models so that much of the work only needs to be done once per model. Once you have designed a set of compatible, tested parts, doing the conversion on a lot of similar vehicles becomes faster and cheaper compared to developing a bespoke solution each time. Not sure if they actually replace the ECU or just fake the missing inputs to keep the existing one happy. Either way, I'm sure they retain existing wiring and keep all the dashboard gauges working.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- LeonM 7y ago
  > I think the point here is that they're designing kits to target specific popular models so that much of the work only needs to be done once per model. I wasn't talking about type approval. In most EU countries (at least Germany and the Netherlands that I'm sure of) you need to pass through technical inspection if you modify a car. Especially if you change the fuel type or change the power output of the vehicle. > I'm sure they retain existing wiring and keep all the dashboard gauges working. Most gauges are no longer applicable (coolant temp, oil pressure, fuel level) or display the wrong range (the tachometer for instance).

pvsukale3 7y ago

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.

bahularora 7y ago
These guys https://etrio.in/ https://etrio.in/ are doing it already and they are also ARAI approved so you are road legal too.

freshfey 7y ago

I have recently seen this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4CPBHj0UQk 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.

consumer451 7y ago
For anyone interested, the "garage in California" is EV West. Here are three more in-depth videos from the wonderful Fully Charged channel about EV West: EV West - in general: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOx5uCufB2Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOx5uCufB2Q EV West - BMW M3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHaqiWcWSIc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHaqiWcWSIc EV West - VW Bus: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLRAQu0b8-o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLRAQu0b8-o

djaychela 7y ago

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.

jdboyd 7y ago
I wonder what that £20k would turn in to if you could commit to your suppliers that you would be buying a thousand units worth? What about only 100 units worth?
- ChrisRR 7y ago
  I would guess that it's mostly labour. Unless you could get a fleet of identical cars or vans, then every vehicle is going to be a bespoke job, slowing things down.
  - karambahh 7y ago
    Trafic/Vivaro are the same car, jointly produced by Open/Vauxhall & Renault so economies of scale could be found. https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renault_Trafic_III_-_Fiat_Talento_II_-_Nissan_NV300_-_Opel_Vivaro_II https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renault_Trafic_III_-_Fiat_Tale...

gioele 7y ago

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 http://mondoelettrico.blogspot.com/search?q=retrofit

nudpiedo 7y ago
I don't often believe conspiracies, but I cannot understand these sort of things... what was the justification for such law? security? Industry protectionism?
- seniorivn 7y ago
  It seams you forgot to list stupidity and as one of the reasons
- FrojoS 7y ago
  You don’t have to believe in conspiracies. It‘s likely just lobbying and corruption.
  - bryanrasmussen 7y ago
    Isn't the conjoining of lobbying and corruption generally known as 'a conspiracy'?
    - hanniabu 7y ago
      It's known as US capitalism

jillesvangurp 7y ago

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.

sveme 7y ago
Electricity is not free, though, so you would have to subtract the price for electricity from your consideration.
- jillesvangurp 7y ago
  True. A number I've heard for Teslas is 4.4 mile per kwh. So, a 150km is about 100000 miles (nice round number) and lets round down the milage to 4. So we are talking 25000 kwh. It depends on where you get your power of course or whether you have your own solar panels but at 10 cents per kwh that would be 2500$ So about half the price. That would be on the expensive side and things get more interesting if you have access to cheaper sources of energy. E.g. bids for solar power plants are below 2 cents now so that cuts it down to about 500$.
Ididntdothis 7y ago
Why do so many people think that electricity is free?

jobigoud 7y ago

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.

semi-extrinsic 7y ago
FYI rusted exhaust pipes can often be mended (at least for a while) using exhaust bandages. It's a cheap DIY low-risk fix. Random manufacturer: https://www.holtsauto.com/holts/products/gun-gum-silencer-repair-bandage/ https://www.holtsauto.com/holts/products/gun-gum-silencer-re...

markvdb 7y ago

“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...

y04nn 7y ago

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.

mft_ 7y ago

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

akadruid1 7y ago
For high value collectables "reversable conversion" is likely to become common. Aston Martin offers a service to replace the ICE with a electric power unit with equivalent power. The ICE gets packed into a flight case in case you want to swap back in the future. Here's an account of £1.3 million DB6 Volante conversion: https://www.topgear.com/car-news/electric/why-heck-would-you-convert-ps13m-aston-electric-power https://www.topgear.com/car-news/electric/why-heck-would-you...
rbf 7y ago
Or synthetically generated fuels (eg audi e-diesel, which is a diesel, but I think a petrol equivalent can be generated), which can be done today, but are very costly for general use. I don't think the cost of fuel for a classic car will be a huge issue even if it is very high (10x of todays cost).
- mft_ 7y ago
  > I don't think the cost of fuel for a classic car will be a huge issue even if it is very high (10x of todays cost). Not sure about that. Let's consider a generic classic car that delivers 25 miles per (UK Imperial) gallon, which is 5.5 miles per liter of petrol. At the moment, petrol is ~1.3-1.5 EUR/liter in central Europe. Taking a mean of 1.4 EUR/L, that's ~25 cents/mile, or 4 miles/EUR. A 200 mile trip (say, a weekend away) would cost ~51 EUR - not too bad. 3000 miles in a year would cost ~764 EUR. --- Now, consider 10x the cost. 510 EUR in fuel, just for a weekend away? 7640 EUR for a year's occasional cruising around? Accepted that's no problem for the super-rich, but it starts to be punitive for a hobbyist owner. What about if you're into American classics that deliver 10 MPG? Further, with that cost for fuel, the economics of a conversion make a lot more sense, before you even consider other possible incentives.

archi42 7y ago

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).

cesis 7y ago

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

Gravityloss 7y ago

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 http://www.sahkoautot.fi/eng

bewilderbeast 7y ago

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.

serpix 7y ago
You will need batteries with hydrogen fuel cells due to the fact the cells do not throttle quickly based on energy demand. The battery is required as a buffer for quickly discharging larger amounts of energy. So in effect you require a full blown electric drive train but with a smaller battery. In my opinion it is way less complex to just increase the size of the battery and get rid off the hydrogen parts.
- bewilderbeast 7y ago
  The biggest problem with full electric powertrains is size of batteries and its weight. Keeping the size of batteries small and weighing less is a bonus in ICE car conversions, like I mentioned in my initial comment. Plus better replenishing time, which in most hydrogen fuel cells cars is around 3 minutes. Edit: the Riversimple Rasa uses a hybrid lithium based battery/supercapacitor pack for this purpose.
  - rbf 7y ago
    I see people talking about refuellig time of hydrogen beein an advantage. Although most videoes I see on youtube seem to use ~10ish minutes - and it depends if the pumps has the correct pressure). Recharging an electric car is usually done in a few seconds of active time (plugging in the cable when you park), only if you exhaust the range during one trip you have to wait for recharging.

bArray 7y ago

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.

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EamonnMR 7y ago

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

blunte 7y ago

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.

hawski 7y ago

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.

RmDen 7y ago

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/ https://newatlas.com/old-bmw-worlds-quickest-ev/24594/ The rest is history....

barbecue_sauce 7y ago

What ever happened to Biodiesel?

blacksmith_tb 7y ago
Well, it's widely added (in small percentages) to regular diesels, mostly due to its cleaning properties. Even if you run 100% bio it still produces large amounts of PM2.5 pollution (less NOX than regular diesels, but that isn't none). And there's plenty of evidence that unless it was produced from non-food crops it's more less using food that should go to people to run your engine. I am happy to have switched from a TDI running 100% to a PHEV.

linuxftw 7y ago

"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.

pier25 7y ago

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 https://imgur.com/40ZymUP He then took the electric parts out to convert a small chevy car but then died before starting that project.

tk75x 7y ago
That's a handsome car, from what is visible in the photo. I would drive it.
- pier25 7y ago
  It's not that it was ugly, but it was very uncomfortable, everything creaked, the wheel was super hard, no AC, etc...

natch 7y ago

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.

turtlebits 7y ago

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.

esaym 7y ago

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...

on_and_off 7y ago

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.

dangus 7y ago

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.

nimbius 7y ago

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.

egorfine 7y ago
> buying a new ECU This is not an option for older Merc engines, no practical options exists. Or I would be gladly stand corrected in this matter as I own quite a few old collectible Mercs all in desperate need of modern technology update (invisible of course, like ECU + EFI).