The Senate itself gets involved. While the low emission zones (ZFE) regulating access to city centers gather more and more opponents, the most absurd ideas emerge to try to make roll again what tomorrow will be prohibited. And among these solutions emerges, in a report from the Senate unveiled by Le Figaro, the retrofit, which would make it possible “to reuse vehicles that are still functional rather than scrapping them in favor of new vehicles”, argues Senator Philippe Tabarot. An opinion that abounds a government project to support this nascent sector in order to convert 80,000 vehicles by 2028.

Worthy of the Lépine and Géo Trouvetou competitions, the idea of ​​installing an electric motor and batteries instead of a heat engine and its tank is somewhere between macrame and the pottery course. And above all, beyond the friendly DIY on vehicles that were already driving very well before that, it calls into question an absolute dogma, that of not accepting, in the name of safety, any major technical transformation of an approved vehicle. . The very rigorous mining service and the forces of order ensure this.

This dogma is however forgotten in the name of retrofitting. Admittedly, the structure itself and the suspensions of the vehicle do not change, but they should because the masses involved and their distribution in the vehicle, even their contribution to the resistance to shocks have nothing in common. In other words, between before and after, vehicles undergoing retrofit have no obligation to undergo crash tests, the results of which, even if carried out before conversion, would inevitably reflect the aging of the structures.

So how can you imagine extending the life of vehicles with 4, 5 or 6 stickers, 10, 15, 20 or even more years old, with this ploy? Their residual value is often close to zero and the retrofit proposes to invest no less than 15,000 euros to transform it into a supposedly clean vehicle. This remains to be demonstrated because the battery packs, which represent 40% of the cost of the modification and which must find a place in a car not designed for it, all come from China. Even if the government counts on the subsequent supply by the French gigafactory just inaugurated in Billy-Berclau, in Hauts-de-France, this is far from being effective.

The government does not seem to be alarmed at all by these aberrations and, while 3 retrofit systems are now approved, it is pushing the fires on many projects to increase to 23 systems by 2025. There is urgency since the calendar, however delayed, of the ZFE provides for the ban from 2025 of Crit’Air 3, that is to say of all diesel vehicles and gasoline produced between 2006 and 2010.

With older vehicles, this represents a fleet of more than 13 million vehicles prohibited from entering the 43 regulated metropolises. Even if they will be able, it should be underlined, to continue to roll outside according to a car diagram of the cities-car of the campaigns. This poses to the populations of the latter a crucial problem of coming to the city, where all the public services and administrations are located which have deserted the countryside. This results in unequal treatment depending on whether one is a city dweller or a country dweller.

Rather than modifying regulations that are ignorant of the realities on the ground and inapplicable, the government is working to find alternative solutions to help French people change cars. We made it simpler, like helping to buy a used electrified car, or even a very recent thermal one.

The state, in its well-known false generosity, intends to extend the expensive eco-bonuses enjoyed by electric vehicles to old “retrofitted” jew’s harps. Agnès Pannier-Runacher, the Minister for the Ecological Transition, announced it with the establishment of aid of up to 6,000 euros for individuals and 10,000 euros for utilities, all of this funded, of course , by the taxes of the French, promoters despite themselves of the electrical sector.