British electric vehicle supplier, Bedeo, has launched a service in France to convert thousands of diesel vans to electric hybrids, benefiting from the French government’s subsidies for retrofitting fossil-fuel models.
France provides EV retrofitters with a 9,000-euro ($9,509) subsidy, but has a requirement that each retrofitted model must first pass the government’s vehicle tests before being considered eligible to receive the subsidies.
The matter of climate change has caused a growth in the conversion of fossil-fuel vehicles to EV status, with companies like Bedeo and France’s Transition One being among the retrofitting services doing so. France is the only country currently providing a broad regulatory framework and subsidies.
Bedeo’s basic conversion kit costs 30,000 euros and comes with a 37-kilowatt hour battery and Protean Electric in-wheel motors, on the rear two wheels of a diesel van. The Protean Electric in-wheel motors are stand-alone motors housed in all or some wheels of an EV and have no need of axles or powertrains.
Bedeo acquired Protean Electric in 2022 from a unit of China Evergrande Group. The Protean in-wheels have already been used by Chinese carmaker, Dongfeng Motor, for small tests fleets. Protean CEO, Andrew Whitehead, has commented that Dongfeng Motor currently has plans of launching new models with them around the middle of the decade.
Whitehead also mentioned that a couple of other Chinese carmakers and three major European carmakers were considering using Protean’s in-wheel motors for their vehicles.
Speaking of Bedeo’s customer base, Boyer said it will most likely be smaller fleets of vans who can’t afford more expensive electric models, so they aren’t left behind. “What we are seeing more and more is that who is going to be left behind in this transition is the smaller fleets. The guy who owns five vans, what does he do?”
Bodeo’s plug-in battery has a 120 km-range (75 miles), which the EV supplier’s CEO, Osman Boyer, believes should cover 95% of delivery routes, then provide conventional diesel range. The company currently has a target of converting 20,000 vans annually.
