This CHEAP Conversion Kit Can Turn ANY Car Electric!

[Music] [Music] hello and welcome to a slightly gray and grizzly day in northern france and a slightly crusty old fiat 500. doesn't sound like the most thrilling premise for a video i grant you but it is actually because if you listen closely you'll notice something different about this old fiat 500. hear that this sucker's electrical but we're not here to review this car today and that's a good thing because there's not that much to talk about this is not a posh ev resto mod it doesn't have a refurbished interior it's not fast it doesn't have huge range and that's the point what we have here is the entry level of ev conversion this is bargain basement ev conversion and it's the work of a company based here in france called transition one who for just a few thousand euros minus a generous government grant will turn your old banger into a no-frills no emissions electric vehicle this is transition one and this is fully charged [Music] amsterdam san diego sydney the number one festival for clean energy and electric vehicles is coming to you whether it's fully charged live in europe supported by mobility service fully charged live uk supported by lv we cannot wait to see you there [Music] so then welcome to transition one hq somewhere in rural northern france most of the office workshop factory is actually housed in multiple shipping containers that you can see behind me for the sake of agility it means they could move the factory around as they please behind me you see a line of 2b converted cars these are some of the first models that transition one will offer conversion kits for in various states of undress i'll be honest with you normally we would wait until the company is a little bit further along before showcasing it on the channel transition one is still a good year away from putting this into production building the finalized version of these kits at scale but here's why i just couldn't wait any longer to show you the work they're doing here first of all it's bloody exciting half the comments on any video that i've ever made on fully charged is you guys screaming out for a sub 10 000 10 000 euro electric car well guess what there's one sitting outside your driveway it's just that it's got an engine at the moment send it to these guys they'll chop some bits out put some other bits in bob's your uncle lecky car the other thing that really intrigues me about transition one is that it's been signed off by the french government they've had a look at the work they're doing here they've approved it as meeting all the required safety regulations and have therefore agreed to subsidize the cost significantly increasing the price of this conversion so it's exciting stuff there's not a huge amount to see there's not glistening robots in the background this is not the zwick hour plant but what there is is one very charismatic founder who i think we better go have a chat with [Music] i'm eric bonjour thank you very much for having us here today i want to start by talking to you about this you said something when we were emailing that really caught my attention yeah the first time i emailed you you replied and you said yes you can come and see me but i want to make clear we're not a car company we're a climate change company yeah what did you mean by that it's a big difference because in a car company the new car there is a lot of feeders a lot of french for electric vehicles and we are we are an ecological transition company because we are on circular economy through efficiency and a lot of things to to be sure we we propose the right solution for tomorrow there's two things to me that gets me really excited about this one is the price point because as we know a lot of electric cars most electric cars are still too expensive for most people but the other is this repurposing of existing products if we want to replace everything by new things it's not possible too much waste so the goal it's to to change something that is for me i'm convinced there is two things really important simple to explain and the rest of it is really simple we extract this engine and replace by electric motor and battery really easy to understand i tested it with people from five years old to 99 easy to understand in 30 seconds you can understand that and the second point it's if you want to change something it's a solution an affordable solution because the best solution with uh too much uh expensive you you cannot get an acceptance of that okay so we've got kind of a before and after here this is obviously a engine less 500. yeah this is transition one virtual zero zero zero two this is a finished article which we've been driving around paris in today or paris i should say um in very basic terms can you explain what the process is what comes out what goes in because it's all about changing as little as possible isn't it yeah so in the retrofit uh it's really like i said it's really easy to understand we we extract the the thermal power train the combustion per train and we replace it by our own generic per train here it's the scars fiat 500 but we can make it on reno cleo twingo congo and pidgeot as well but the the process to to convert a car is to extract the pro train and replace but our own power train generic pro train and to integrate the battery pack at the the place of the of the tank and we've still got gearbox in there it's it's really changing as little as possible isn't it yeah one of the secrets of the retrofit you have to avoid to change too much thing because to to to allow the client to use their own car uh on the public roads uh we need to get approval and if you if you change too much things you have to to make too much tests to validate the the safety so if we can avoid to make too much test it's better uh for me for me the director of it it's a big challenge to change something in the behavior of the people so explain me the the the uh the of the of the for about the gearbox and uh without gearbox it's we we had to design a new parts to transfer the the movement to the wheels and with the gearbox we reduce the things to change [Music] welcome inside the electric transition one fiat 500 i cannot stress enough how unchanged this interior is it's all the same gistic still intact i'm sure some of you are curious as to how this works i'll explain to you as i'm eric explained it to me gear 2 you'd use for like hill starts gears 3 and 4 for normal driving gear 5 for the motorway so you do actually get more torque in those lower gears and higher top speed in the higher ones petrol heads the world over have been crying at the death of the manual gearbox well you may still be able to have one in your electric car in the future there's obviously some kind of bits and bobs hanging out because this is pre-production it'll be a bit tidier in the finished article one thing i do like as well is america's promise that your fuel gauge in your gauge cluster will show your state of charge which is reassuring [Music] i'm eric i would love to hear some numbers could you talk to me a little bit about range about the power of the motor that you're putting in about the charging speed and then price as well i'd be interested to hear if you and the target for the customers for this kind of car it's for daily use it's not for vacation it's not to move all around the country is to use your core locally sure so simple solution to use locally but about feeders so we decided to purpose 100 kilometers 15 kilowatt hour about battery uh and like that you you can use delhi uh your car because um you you don't need too much range per day yeah so 100 kilometers about 60 miles that's uh maybe a bit more if you're just doing city driving we do have regenerative braking yeah it depends your drive it depends temperature as well the waiver yeah right come on stop teasing me pricing roughly what do you expect our proposition is to offer the retrofit up from 5 000 euros after subsidies of course the the biggest question okay but without subsidies because in countries that could be different regarding the proposed the proposal of the government of the lands and so on our industrial price it's to reach a price between seven and eight thousand euros before subsidies before subsidies because with an affordable solution you help more people to decide to change something and actually at that price if if we can get it down to let's say five six thousand euro after that subsidy well you could go and buy an old petrol fiat 500 for i don't know two up 2 000 euro less with a petrol engine bring it to transition one you know 8 000 euro later you've got a small electric car you can't buy anything for that cheap anywhere close to it at the moment yeah in fact what you said okay there is a big difference of price it's a target to be sure that a lot of people will able to to convert the car if it's at the same price there is no interest uh in interest only on the low low carbon production but not a lot of people could be interesting but that so low carbon production and a cheaper solution it's better of course some people will be interested by new core but if we want to change something we are in a ecological transition period and we have to change our own behavior our own needs and director of it it's a new solution automotive makers in the time teach us taught us you have to sell a car maintain your car repair your car resell the car but never improve the core [Music] so here we are with car0002 car zero zero zero one by the way was a renault twingo trey franch i've been driving around uh oleon in this all morning and it is a lovely little thing small simple electric cars make me so happy and it is quite strange being in a three-pedal old car with a manual stick between you and the passenger but you kind of just get used to it after a while and stop thinking about that stuff i just just want to recap those numbers because they really are quite intriguing about 100 kilometers of range about 60 miles bit more if you're just doing city driving there is regenerative braking which is on max strength all the time as it should be in a really simple ev the battery is 15 kilowatt hours the smallest battery ev that i've driven is the desire spring with i think 27 kilowatt hours and that may sound impossibly small but if you're getting 100 kilometers of urban range out of it it's probably enough for quite a lot of people and what that smaller battery means is lightness it's compact you're not lugging around half a ton of battery everywhere you go using up additional juice because of all the weight it's small simple minimalist ev conversion this is a completely different mindset to any kind of ev conversion that i've seen one other thing that we've not spoken about yet which is really fascinating to me i was kind of expecting to see sort of cars in bits being converted when we got here but actually transition one is not planning on doing the converting themselves they're going to make the kits for all these different cars you order the kit and it's then delivered to your local approved garage you know all those garages around the world who are going to have less and less work to do as we transition into low maintenance evs they're going to do this for you transition 1 are going to teach garages how to do this conversion it's quite straightforward they will then do that for you around the corner from where you live and the aim is to get the whole process down to around four hours four hours you go to the garage in the morning pick up your electric car at lunch time think about that interest how much have you uh how many people have got that at the moment we are over 10 000 requests to retrofit course not only fiat 500 sure the classic one for example up to hummer up to a bus up to trucks but a lot on light cars because we are focused on light cars because it's the most popular cars on the european roads so the ones that we have the least electric choices for the ones that most people can afford and and the the architecture of the car is really similar engine at the front tank at the back uh and with a similar architecture that will be better to implement our generic makes sense for train so we've got rolling pre-production cars we've got the components you've got the approval of the french government roughly how long do you think until i can come to transition one and buy a conversion kit for my 500 for example in our world map at the end of this year 2022 we will start the sales and the first delivery will be on the first quarter of 2033. wow between between all of that this is approval and we industrialize our approach about approval to extend our number of uh models in our catalog because our approval will get approval for a model so uh with uh versions uh dazzle gas and so on so every individual model that you convert for needs its own kind of approval just to make sure yeah so the approval is not our production yeah well you need to afraid of it it's buy model so if one fiat 500 okay mini and so on because we have to validate the integration is safe so the approval is not a license that that would be unacceptable if it was a license um this is a test to to ensure that the security the the safety on the on the integration is right well there you have it ladies and gents i hope you enjoyed this very early look at a truly fascinating company i thought that there were two things that were really exciting about transition one there's actually three number one affordability electric cars are still too expensive for most people this is cheaper taking your existing car in getting the engine chopped out not only is it more affordable but it's kinder to the planet that brings me to point number two using what we've already got it's all well and good going out and buying shiny new cars but most of us already have cars what's going to happen to them in the electric future well hopefully a big chunk of them are going to catch a second wind as evs but the third thing that i've only really gleamed during my time here with imerick is the notion of using existing garages to install these kits transition one are not going to convert them for you they're going to make the kits they're going to ship them internationally they're going to teach garages around the world how to install them and then all of a sudden these chop shops around the country that currently have increasingly less and less to do get a new lease of life they've got new work to do turning petrol cars electric i've talked in recent videos about this mindset change that's needed as we enter the electric era this philosophy of less is more of taking only what you need and nothing more than that the car that most reflects that that i've driven so far probably the daisies spring which you all loved this is that philosophy on steroids it is simple it's minimalistic it's affordable and we love it hopefully we'll be back here in a year or two to check out a gleaming shiny new factory floor and test the finished article fingers crossed it all goes well for these guys because i love what they're doing as a company so there we have it transition one please make sure to like and subscribe and if you have been thank you for watching [Music] do [Music] well i hope you enjoyed that episode with jack i mean everyone enjoys episodes with jack jack's marvelous oh jack's young jack's tall jack's got loads of hair i hate jack anyway here's another episode that jack did it's absolutely brilliant here's our latest episode up there you can subscribe to fully choice to get more jack and there you can support jack on patreon

Channel: Fully Charged Show

Views: 969,042

Keywords: electric car youtube channel, why should i buy an electric car, green energy comment, renewable energy youtube, green technology review, renewable energy comment, renewable energy electric vehicles, electric vs ice cars, latest news on renewable energy, kryten, fully charged show live, ev show, fully charged show, robert llewellyn, electric cars, fully charged, Ev conversion, Transition One, retrofit

Id: 98mlJ1N50DU

Length: 19min 47sec (1187 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 17 2022

Reddit Comments

[u/siilver84]

plenty of good cars will be going to scrap sadly, this will help.i don't need a car will self drive or packing assist. i need a radio and my heated seat if possible

[u/mishengda]

The interesting innovation here is actually policy-based. The kit has been certified by the French government, so it qualifies for the EV incentive.

100 km of range from a 15 kWh pack, for €5,000 after subsidies.

[u/buried_lede]

Can we get these in the US?

[u/mikebergy]

Need one of these for my 1991 Acura

[u/RedBeardBeer]

I'm really interested to know if it has heat or AC. CCS quick charging? Probably not with a 15 kwh pack. Maybe 22 kw AC in Europe?

[u/WaitformeBumblebee]

https://transition-one.fr/en/ " Speed of 110km/h maximum "

Give it at least 130km/h to cruise highway even if at cost of range. I'm sure the electric motor can handle it and is firmware limited because of range.

Another big problem in Europe is legalizing a custom car, which is nearly impossible compared with US "that would legitimize EV conversions, which are currently approved on a case-by-case basis"

https://www.digitaltrends.com/cars/french-startup-transition-one-launches-ev-conversion-kit-for-old-diesel-cars/

[u/ColoToCali]

Would love to convert my Nissan Juke! Do you think that will be possible? It is automatic.

[u/ironhydroxide]

I get that they're in the EU so don't have the 500e, but.....
Buy a 500e instead of buying a 500 then converting it to an e

[u/fanlg2999]

ok so u buy the kit from them ?