
A $5,600 Electric Makeover for Old Diesel Cars - rihegher
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-07-31/there-s-a-5-600-electric-moonshot-for-your-combustion-clunker
======
gioele
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
I don't often believe conspiracies, but I cannot understand these sort of
things... what was the justification for such law? security? Industry
protectionism?

~~~
emiliobumachar
Safety is a legitimate reason, unless they were doing the full-blown car
certification, including crash-testing. I'm definitely in favor of giving
green technology a pass to some extent, but it would be hard to figure out
exactly to which extent. Unregulated cars were deathtraps.

~~~
dsfyu404ed
It's gonna be very hard unintentionally build a deathtrap if you're starting
with a modern car and not going out of your way to do dumb things that make it
likely to go up in flames.

Furthermore, in the case of an EV conversion you can basically just make sure
the EV power-train does not occupy physical space that the ICE power-train did
not and your crumple zones and airbags will work fine.

Edit:

Making batteries that don't catch on fire is a solved problem. Getting those
electrons to the motor without starting a fire is a solved problem. You really
only get fires when you're trying to push the performance envelope which is
generally a low priority for commercial conversions.

Cars are not hyper-complicated non-deterministic black boxes. It is possible
to modify them without causing unforeseen consequences. Just because you may
personally lack the expertise to understand how the systems interact does not
mean that nobody can understand it. A qualified engineer with an automotive
background should have no problem creating an EV conversion that is every bit
as safe as the base vehicle though it will probably be slightly less efficient
in terms of materials and labor usage than a conversion for the same vehicle
designed by an OEM team for manufacture at scale. The OEMs don't have people
that are magically smarter, or different laws of physics if anything they will
have a harder time engineering an equivalently performing system because they
have many more constraints to optimize for than a conversion company.

~~~
JulianMorrison
If it was me, I'd be worrying about fire, from batteries and wiring.

~~~
rdtwo
Exactly it can easily turn into a ford pinto due to insufficient fire
protection

------
djaychela
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.

~~~
shoes_for_thee
Why bother replacing the gearbox?

~~~
dsfyu404ed
Because an automatic transmission is just a waste with the power "curve" of an
electric motor. An automatic transmission basically replaces the function of a
clutch by letting you put power to the wheels at super low rpm while keeping
the engine spinning a decent rpm. An electric motor does not need this, it is
just wasted energy in that application.

Some sort of direct gearbox with multiple speeds would probably be useful in a
work vehicle application. However, one from an automotive application would be
totally overkill because an electric motor's power band is too wide to need
more than two or maybe three widely spaced gears. A purpose built high/low
gearbox (like on a drill) would be better. Sure, you can always spec a bigger
motor but that has trade-offs.

Most early EV conversions had fairly low horsepower motors and retained the
manual transmission and used it to avoid overheating the motor when leaving a
stop wide open (which you did most of the time when you only had ~50hp).
Obviously that's a non-issue with the higher power motors that are commonly
used today.

~~~
shoes_for_thee
Wouldn't the advantage of being able to cruise at low RPMs massively increase
range with the same size battery?

And wouldn't _not_ replacing the transmission result in lower costs for the
retrofit? If the upfront cost of a retrofit is the major hurdle preventing
adoption, then reducing complexity of the retrofit would seem more important
than reducing overall complexity of the drivetrain... particularly since
you'll still be better-than-parity complexity following an electric retrofit.

I understand the non-trivial power-loss of connecting a motor to a
transmission, but to me this seems like an acceptable trade... particularly as
someone who enjoys rowing through my gears.

~~~
dsfyu404ed
>Wouldn't the advantage of being able to cruise at low RPMs massively increase
range with the same size battery?

Not really. An electric motor does not lose much efficiency with increased
speed.

>And wouldn't not replacing the transmission result in lower costs for the
retrofit?

In a longitudinal application it would be cost neutral to retain a manual
transmission.

In any application it would be dumb to keep an automatic transmission. In a
longitudinal application replacing any transmission is as easy as a couple
carrier bearings and a different drive shaft.

If I was really trying to cut cost but perform a large volume of conversions
on FWD cars with transverse mounted engines (i.e. basically all FWD cars) and
automatic transmissions I'd keep the transmission housings but replace all the
clutches, planetaries, etc with a single solid shaft. While machined parts are
expensive they're still cheaper than coming up with another solution for the
differential.

------
lumberjack
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.

~~~
agumonkey
Some guys on France have picked a set of cars using the same frame to design a
single kit.

~~~
Phenomenit
It's easier because all of the French car brands are basically the same with
the same frame with a different badge and bodywork.

~~~
hawski
I thought that Renault has it different than Peugeot/Citroen. The former has
common parts with Nissan and the latter with Opel (also part of PSA) and Fiat.
Am I wrong?

~~~
aeyes
Opel still shares no platforms with the french cars, it is all GM. The first
car based on the PSA platform is planned to come out next year.

~~~
joking
The grandland shares platform, it's actually built in the same factory than
the 3008. It comes from an accord previous to the acquisition of Opel from psa

------
Animats
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)

~~~
lumberjack
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
,,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.

~~~
adrianN
Vacation is the trivially substitutable part of car needs: Just rent a car.

~~~
abyssin
I don't understand why this needs to be said, and I agree with you. There's no
point owning a car that is more expensive only because if has to face specific
conditions one or two days a year.

Renting a car seems to be the obvious solution, but there might be two reasons
why it doesn't appear to be so for most people. The first one is that in
general car drivers don't know how much they pay per day or per kilometer
driven. Then renting a car seems to be expensive. The second reason is that
cars have an almost religious status in our society.

It reminds me of Ath, a city in Belgium that has a yearly event where the
people go through the streets wearing huge statues. This tradition can be
found in other countries as well:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gigantes_y_cabezudos](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gigantes_y_cabezudos).
Car culture looks like a big daily procession to honour the values of power,
speed, and freedom from physical limitations. No wonder some people can't
leave their symbolic attire, and instead want to own it, the way they own
their daily clothes.

~~~
LeonM
It's even worse than that: in countries where caravans are popular (which is
most of Europe), most people buy heavy and overpowered cars just to be able to
tow their caravan twice a year.

------
rasz
> 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

~~~
nexuist
>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
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?

------
freshfey
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
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)

------
LeonM
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.

~~~
moviuro
> I doubt they can do it for €5k.

They don't. They do it for 8300€, of which 3300€ are (re)funded by the French
tax office/Ecology Ministry. So it's 5000€ from the driver's pocket (in the
end).

See [https://www.service-
public.fr/particuliers/vosdroits/F32487](https://www.service-
public.fr/particuliers/vosdroits/F32487) (in French)

~~~
hokkos
It seems to use the conversion bonus where you discard an old fossil car to a
new more efficient one, it can't use the EV bonus because it needs to be a new
car, in this case this is a 5000€ bonus, if the law was changed to accept
conversion it would make the whole thing free.

[https://www.service-
public.fr/particuliers/vosdroits/F34014](https://www.service-
public.fr/particuliers/vosdroits/F34014)

------
blunte
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.

------
jillesvangurp
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
Electricity is not free, though, so you would have to subtract the price for
electricity from your consideration.

~~~
jillesvangurp
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$.

------
pier25
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
That's a handsome car, from what is visible in the photo. I would drive it.

~~~
pier25
It's not that it was ugly, but it was very uncomfortable, everything creaked,
the wheel was super hard, no AC, etc...

------
russellbeattie
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
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.

------
nimbius
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
> 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).

------
esaym
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...

------
hawski
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.

------
bewilderbeast
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
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
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
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.

~~~
magicalhippo
> Recharging an electric car is usually done in a few seconds of active time

You forgot the 5 minutes spent trying to download and install their own
proprietary app, creating an account, just for the app to fail to start the
charging...

------
archi42
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).

------
y04nn
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.

------
RmDen
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....

------
mft_
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

~~~
rbf
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_
_> 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.

------
natch
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.

------
jobigoud
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
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-re...](https://www.holtsauto.com/holts/products/gun-gum-silencer-
repair-bandage/)

------
linuxftw
"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.

------
beautifulfreak
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?)

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

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pvsukale3
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
These guys [https://etrio.in/](https://etrio.in/) are doing it already and
they are also ARAI approved so you are road legal too.

------
fencepost
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
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.

------
dangus
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.

------
motorcyclediari
When we speak about affordability, Hero and TVS comes in our mind, here are <a
href="[https://www.motorcyclediaries.in/bike-news/best-scooters-
und...](https://www.motorcyclediaries.in/bike-news/best-scooters-
under-50000/">best) scooters under 50000</a>

------
MaanuAir
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.

~~~
King-Aaron
> 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)

------
Gravityloss
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)

------
turtlebits
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.

------
markvdb
“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...

------
on_and_off
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.

------
barbecue_sauce
What ever happened to Biodiesel?

~~~
blacksmith_tb
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.

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

------
adrianN
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
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.

~~~
hokkos
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
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/-/publi...](https://publications.europa.eu/en/publication-
detail/-/publication/99fc30eb-c06d-11e8-9893-01aa75ed71a1/language-en/format-
PDF/source-77059768)

------
bArray
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.

