Canadian company Upcycle Green Technology has begun transforming old Toyota Corollas into practical, fully electric pickup trucks. The company claims that businesses with Corollas in their fleet will be able to save up to 4,500 CAD annually on each conversion thanks to the price difference between petrol and electricity.
The donor vehicle has to be a Toyota Corolla produced between 2009 and 2013 (like the one in the video). In addition to the truck bed, the car receives a single electric motor rated at 136 PS (134 hp / 100 kW) and a traction battery sized 26 kWh. The range amounts to roughly 150 kilometers (93 miles) – quite adequate for small businesses, UGT argues.
The initial production plans involve making only 100 such vehicles per year, with the view of increasing this number to 200 eventually. The standard ‘all-included’ cost is 35,000 CAD, which doesn’t sound too bad if you consider that gasoline car owners spend around 30 CAD per 100 kilometers driven, while opting for the truck conversion slashes the expenditure to just 2.5 CAD.