Should Retrofitting Be Part of Your Electrification Strategy?

Retrofitting may help electrify existing equipment effectively by replacing internal combustion engines (ICEs) with battery packs. However, various practical hurdles could impact the costs and feasibility of these efforts.

How should you decide if your product is a good candidate for retrofitting? What’s the biggest pitfall you must avoid to ensure a successful effort? Here’s what you need to know.

The reality is that many ICE-powered products are built around the demands of the ICE. 

For example, cars have engine bays, transmissions, fuel tanks, emission regulations, oil change intervals, coolant circuits, etc., because the ICE, not the vehicle or users, requires them. Taking an ICE car built to accommodate the engine and its peripherals and converting it into a battery-powered vehicle is often challenging, inefficient, and hard to pull off.

Retrofitting a typical passenger car is, in most cases, not cost-effective because you must account for labor, safety, inspection, and type approval complexities. Also, users would need to deal with puzzled insurance companies and figure out how to get around the no longer relevant emissions testing requirements.

Pound-for-pound and amortized, it’s cheaper to buy an entry-level Tesla Model 3 than to electrify a twelve-year-old Volkswagen up to the same standards. No wonder there isn’t a jalopy-to-EV conversion shop on every street corner — while the idea is practically feasible, the business case doesn’t support execution at scale.

However, retrofitting may be very lucrative/suitable/practical for two- and three-wheelers or custom vehicles like construction equipment, mining gear, garbage trucks, towing rigs, military transports, ambulances, industrial machinery, and more.

For example, replacing fume-spewing two-stroke engines in light two-wheelers like tuk-tuks and rickshaws with batteries has a positive business case thanks to the energy-to-weight ratio, the relatively lax safety regulations in developing countries, and the vehicle’s simple construction (e.g., an engine strapped to a bicycle).

Meanwhile, big, expensive, specialized gear is also often powered by ICEs. However, the total cost of ownership (TCO) is only marginally dependent on fuel cost. The requirements for safety and emissions are also very different (if present). Therefore, the limitations that make retrofitting an ICE car impractical don’t generally apply to larger professional equipment.

About 80 to 90% of purpose-built professional/industrial gear electrifies well through retrofit. But we must evaluate business requirements and user needs on a case-by-case basis. 

Manufacturers must beware of one nasty trap when deciding how much energy (i.e., how big a battery) is appropriate. Let’s say you ask a customer how long a charge they need for a backhoe. You may get an answer like, “My backhoe can run 40 hours on a tank of diesel, so I need a battery that can run for 40 hours. While you’re at it, let’s make it 100 hours.”

If you try to meet this demand, the final product will be impractical for you and your customer (e.g., too heavy, too costly), killing the business case for electrification. Here’s an example to show why product builders often need to take the lead by changing the market’s preconceived notion of how a piece of equipment behaves:

The Nokia brick phones of the 2000s could last a week on one charge. When smartphones entered the market, some people thought, “If I had a week between battery charges before, I need two weeks going forward.” (That was the consumers’ perceived notion of progress.)

Sure, it could be done if people are willing to lug around a smartphone that weighs a couple of pounds. But soon after the first smartphones hit the market, consumer figured out the tradeoff, learned how to preserve battery life, and got onto the bandwagon of charging their phones once (or more) daily.

Electrifying equipment and devices require product teams to balance the immutable laws of physics with user demand and behaviors while questioning whether a requirement is essential for the application or simply a carry-over from the ICE era. Finding the sweet spot requires knowledge, common sense, insights, and contemplation.

Don’t get stuck in analysis paralysis. We can help you make meaningful progress in selecting your battery solution and designing an integration strategy in a day in our new Battery Strategy Workshop. Learn more to see how we can help you build electrified products cost-effectively with cutting-edge insights and deep industry knowledge.