Every Automaker Should Develop Conversion Kits For Their Gas Vehicles

techimp2 (45)in #steempress • 5 years ago

Just recently we learned Volkswagen is going to sell an electric vehicle (EV) retrofit kit for its classic Beetle.

Summarized info

Many articles are about the transition of the world’s driving fleet to EVs, the expectation that sales of internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles will eventually be supplanted by EVs, and a broad forecast that fleet turnover will take approximately 15 years once ICE vehicle sales cease until the world reaches 100% electric power in this sector.

In the not so distant future, it’s likely that many EVs will cost the same as or less in purchase price than ICE vehicles.

It is likely the sequence of events will be this, EV sales will continue climbing in percentage until they eventually displace 100% of ICE vehicles (by the invisible hand of the market, by taxation/subsidies of various forms, by mandates to transition off ICE, and by novel mechanisms not yet envisioned), but legacy ICE products will still be on the roads and will slowly diminish in number due to retirements (age, rust, repairs that cost more then the vehicle is worth, etc.) and will experience accelerated depreciation as customers realize a used EV is a better value then used ICE vehicles.

If governments do not help retire the orphan gas vehicles (some will and some will yield to the pressure of “personal freedom” to harm society), then the retirement rate will slow to fleet turnover, because even as remaining fossil-powered vehicles experience accelerated depreciation, those who cannot afford even used EVs will be drawn to ultra-low purchase prices.

And if an ICE vehicle needed an expensive engine or transmission repair or replacement and the frame is in decent shape, it may only be a small upcharge to convert it to an electric vehicle (if the kits are widely available).

In some cases, conversion kits will simply not be economical, and it makes sense to not release kits for those vehicles unless they’re modular kits adaptable to many models of car with minimal costs.