Concretely, the engine block has been replaced by an electric motor and the batteries, fixed in place of the tank where the charging socket is now located (allow 5 hours of charging on a domestic socket, 2h30 on a charging station). Finally, no place is lost: “To succeed in a retrofit, only the spaces that have been freed up must be reused. So the trunk and the seats in the car are still there, we haven’t reused them.”
Range reduced to 100 km
But if the car keeps all its space, its autonomy, on the other hand, is limited to 100 km: “The question of autonomy is always a real question because we would always like to have more autonomy. The 100 km of autonomy is a reasonable approach. We are not in a context where we are looking to replace a car for another. We are in a context where we seek to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. By putting less autonomy, that is to say by targeting 90% of the most frequent uses, it is less CO2 to manufacture the retrofit”he justifies.
And to add:A car like the Renault Zoé requires seven tons to manufacture. By putting a reasonable autonomy, when we are going to do the retrofit of this car, it is between two and three tons. So you have to keep this virtuous approach in mind. It’s not just an automotive subject, it’s above all a subject of ecological transition: how are we going to do better tomorrow than what we did yesterday”.
One approval required per model
Still, if in France the practice has been authorized for 2 years, each modified model must be approved (this Fiat 500 is only a prototype). And that has a cost: between 100,000 and 800,000 euros, depending on the model.
“Today we are working on the approval of the first five models (the Fiat 500, the Twingo, the Kangoo, the Renault Clio and the Mini) to then extend to other equally popular models”explains Aymeric Libeau. “We are on a fundraising of several tens of millions of euros which will materialize in the coming months. And this is what allows us to industrialize. We are planning our first deliveries of approved vehicles at the end of 2023 for France At the European level, it will depend on the speed at which the European Commission will harmonize the regulation of industrial retrofitting in Europe”.
An investment that is worth the candle for this entrepreneur: “We are at the beginning of the retrofit era and the retrofit era is going to be unavoidable”he says. “Essential because there are so many cars that if we want to replace them all, it will take at least 20 years. Except that we no longer have these 20 years. The ecological transition is there and therefore, from here a year, a year and a half, in Europe, there will be several countries where it will be possible to retrofit your car”.