Doing conversions, can it be your livelyhood?

just in general....so your thinking about opening up a shop ;-)

 

Here in the US I can not imagine that someone would be able to simply focus on Prius conversions - it is just way too small a niche, and many are DIYers. I think that there would be a fairly long lead time to develop the contacts needed to find the business - doing it independently I think it would take months to develop a reputation among the community of folks interested and then months more to convert the interest into customers.

There are 2 ways that you might be able to jump start this - instead of selling the service to end users try and develop partnerships with independent auto repair shops that do a brisk Prius business. I still think that this would take months, but once you have things in place you have others do your marketing - of course they would take a cut of what you charge.

The other would be to get involved with a manufacturer of plug-in kits - as a certified and recommended installer. You would have far less flexability in what you could offer customers, but being involved with the hardware maker would add to your bona fides and give you a support network on the back end.

Best of luck and let us know what happens.

 

explore more options
if you have something beside it then YES but only then NO.
its way to small and the party's that already doing this over here in NL are plenty.

i already did my own conversion ;-) running 2008 ( nihm ) now upgrading ( so not running ) to lithium

 

not sure about the road tax thing but yes there are already company's offering stuff like the ewertz brothers orion with HEM interface and enginer kits
also a system from the UK.
and there are a few company's rebuilding ICE to EV and can also convert a prius ofcourse to hybrid plugin.
you really need to have a company already and doing this at the side, otherwise you will not get any food on the table!
also getting the prius converted to plugin and have a Co2 test to you can have free road tax after 2014 then you will need to spend a lot of money in getting it tested!
not sure of you can do that, even know where to start ( i have no clue )

 

What about a generalised EV expansion business? Offering range expanders to the new EV's out there? Or maybe just specialise in the Prius or hybrids in general? Offering a service similar to Reinvolt in the US? I know in the UK there are a lot of failing grey imported JDM (Japan Domestic Market) only Prius which only require minimal work to make them good, yet many are going to the scrap yards because nobody knows how to fix them.

 

PHEV conversion on a local based business would be a part-time employment at best. You also have the following issues to work with........componet supply, start up cost,revenue, sales, warranty, and other small business concerns. PHEV supplier's have issues which you can read and see in this forum.......