While the electric is beginning to make a place for itself in the French car fleet, access to major cities will be prohibited in 2025 for the most polluting vehicles. A problem for example for craftsmen and their utilities, or municipalities and their fleet of diesel buses. But buying a new vehicle is not within everyone’s reach. But for two years, a solution, Retrofit, is authorized in France. She allows to transform a thermal vehicle into an electric vehiclea less expensive operation than the purchase of a new vehicle. Arnaud Pigounidès is the president of REV Mobilitiesa start-up that offers the retrofit operation on certain types of vehicles.
You offer REV Mobilities a solution, Retrofit, to transform thermal vehicles into electric ones. How it works?
The electrical retrofit consists of remove a heat engine of a vehicle, so whether it is a two-wheeler, a utility vehicle, a car or a bus. Take out the engine, take out all the parts of the engine, the traditional traction chain, the tank and everything, and put an electric motor with batteries but also to hydrogen. In fact, it’s a new electrification technology that we put in old vehicles. This is a completely new phenomenon which has just been regulated by France, following in-depth work that I carried out for three years to have regulations that allow it, it should be known that it was prohibited since 1954. But now it is authorized. So we at REV Mobilities do vintage cars, vans and also buses and trucks.
Who is this solution for?
It is ideally aimed at all those who work in cities and who will be confronted with one thing: it is that their diesel or vehicle will be banned, in low emission areasto circulate from the January 1, 2025. So actually it’s carnage, I can tell you, 17 million vehicles will be banned in major cities. However, most craftsmen, most fleet managers, most companies have purchased fleets of diesel vehicles. For example, they have a diesel bus which has been fitted out by a city to transport residents. Leave them in diesel, to circulate, we had no choice but to throw them away or sell them, see them go pollute elsewhere and buy new. However, new is not enough. And the retrofit makes it possible to transform vehicles more quickly and to be able to use them every day.
This is a solution that you also present as advantageous financially compared to selling old internal combustion vehicles and buying new ones…
Yes, retrofitting is extremely advantageous, whether for cars, for utility vehicles or for buses, since it is neither more nor less than half the price of a new electric vehicle. You know that a new electric vehicle is still very expensive. Whether it’s a Tesla or a Zoé, it’s still more expensive than a Clio Diesel. In fact, it’s because there are batteries in it that save you a lot of money. But these batteries, you have to buy them today. And so suddenly, in fact, by doing the retrofit, we only change the engine. You do not need to redo an entire chassis and therefore it is half the price of a new vehicle. Knowing that, as builders, we have a premium that, between the State bonus and the regional bonusesparticularly in Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes and Grenoble, can for craftsmen go up to €15,000 reduction for a retrofit between €15,000 and €25,000. This is a superb opportunity to be able to transform your own vehicle and above all give it a second life. To continue for five years, seven years, eight years, ten years even if necessary, even fifteen years if the chassis is in very good condition. And all that is good for the planetit’s good for the wallet and above all that create jobs in France. The goal is not to take vehicles to the other side of the planet to be transformed, to return. No, our goal is to create the conditions for transformation in each agglomeration, in each major region, so that partner mechanics or people we approve as retrofitters can carry out the operation as close as possible to the customer. And above all, it reassures customers. People work with their vehicle and therefore this whole French network is thousands of jobs in France that we are creating.
Also preserve the employment of mechanics, in particular so that there are still actions to be carried out on the vehicles that will be offered to them?
Indeed, the retrofit is a good alternative for mechanics because it gives them something to work with later. Because imagine tomorrow, everything becomes electric with vehicles coming from China. What can a mechanic do in it apart from changing tires? He is not even allowed to touch the vehicle because it is a high voltage vehicle. So he may not even have been trained, whereas we are there to train these people, to help them transform vehicles with our systems, our assembly guides and our processes, so that we can do more and more. And it’s a real opportunity for mechanics who are hundreds of garages per region who call us because the retrofit, they understood that it was a real business opportunity and they are also very afraid of losing their job later.
For the moment, on your side in any case, it does not yet concern vehicles that we are going to say common, that is to say, private vehicles that are not yet “collectible”…
The private vehicle in retrofit will happen according to us around 2024-2025 when we are going to be closer and closer to the establishment of low emission zones. Since you should know that it is on January 1, 2025 that 45 of the largest cities in France will ban diesel engines that are more than fifteen years old. Any Crit’Air three, four, five will be banned or even Crit’Air two later. So we know with the increase in our volumes that prices will finally come down and around 2024-2025 with the arrival of European batteries also, since there is work on the design of the batteries and the manufacture of batteries in the “Gigafactory”, in France and in Europe, will lower the costs and therefore suddenly it will be much more profitable and much more interesting for an individual to do so at this time.