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London Electric Cars is a company founded in 2017 by Matthew Quitter. A man on a mission to save old gas hogs from the junkyard by converting them to battery power. Typically, the conversions are completed through the use of parts from crashed electric vehicles like the Teslas and Nissan Leafs that have been written off by insurance companies but have engines and batteries that are not damaged. “We are the ultimate in recycling,” says Mr. Quitter.

The company currently charges around £ 20,000 per conversion, the cars, while good for the planet, could be seen as a hole in your back pocket. The company wants to cut costs to £ 5,000 to make it affordable to more people, which should encourage more to make positive changes to their vehicles.

While the UK government is currently offers a grant of £ 2,500 towards the purchase of a new electric vehicle, Mr Quitter says they should also consider introducing grants for conversions. “It is a disaster to waste the millions of old people [petrol and diesel] Cars on our roads and government discounts on electric cars encourage scrapping, ”he says.

“The government must offer affordable conversions on cheap old cars to use the scrapped EV batteries – the raw materials of which are still skyrocketing,” he added.

Steve Drummond, who runs another company that converts old cars to electric drive – Electrogenic, based in Oxford – agrees. “The incentive is to buy new electric vehicles, but that means throwing an entire car away when you could just change the engine,” says Drummond.

“Retrofitting vehicles with batteries is an emerging market, and we are working with green travel researchers,” says a spokeswoman for the Ministry of Transport.

In the meantime, oldtimers converted to electric are associated with some financial incentives. Like all classic cars (currently classified in the UK as those built before January 8, 1981), they are exempt from road tax if they are not used for commercial purposes. Classic car insurance is usually cheap, at least if the vehicle does not cover many kilometers. However, if you convert your vehicle to electric drive, you must inform your insurance company and this can increase your premium.

Converting old cars to electricity means they will produce less carbon dioxide (CO2) than a brand new electric car.

The UK government-funded Zemo Partnership (formerly known as the UK Low Carbon Vehicle Partnership) says a new all-electric car typically generates 18 tons of CO2 during its lifetime, 46% of which is generated during manufacture. This corresponds to 24 tons for a standard gasoline vehicle.

According to Quitter, a conversion takes three to six months, depending on whether he has already gained experience with the conversion of that particular car and model and how complex a customer’s wishes and specifications are.

It seems surreal that the cars we once considered junk, or even vintage cars parked in a collector’s driveway, can be turned into environmentally friendly electric vehicles. This changes the game. London Electric Cars are moving in the right direction, paving the way for electric car companies that are not yet offering this service.