Meet the Summerside company converting an old Toyota into an electric pickup truck

At first glance, the 2010 Toyota Corolla owned by Upcycle Green Technology autoshop in Summerside, P.E.I., looks like a regular family sedan.

But as you walk around the car, you notice the rearhas been removed it's in the process of being converted to a pickup truck.

As if that wasn'ta tough enough transformation, thebiggest change is coming under the hood. The old engine has been removed, and now the car is awaiting a newelectric heart.

It's the first to be converted into an electric vehicle by the garage.

"Aphilosophyfor our garage is to recycle everything," saidNatal Antonini, one of the owners.

"One of the big goals of the company is to produce greener cars than you can buy today on the market."

The car is yet to move under its own power. A motor and batteries have been ordered and when they arrive, the batteries will be laid flat in the newly made truck bed.

The plan, Antonini said, is to build a prototype and developthemethod they will use for converting more vehicles, with the overarching goal of marketing them to people who would use them as fleet vehicles.

"The goal of the fleet owner is to make money at the end of the year. It'snot to have the most beautiful car or to have all the new technologies, but he needs a reliable car, economic car," said Antonini.

Any car bigger than you need is a waste. Natal Antonini, Upcycle Green Technology

But, the company doesn't want to replace every vehicle in the fleets, recognizing that sometimeslarger vehicles have their place.

Magali Freiberger, the other owner of Upcycle, said they want to give fleet owners the option, so ifa bigger truck isn't necessary, a smaller option is available.

Freiberger said she thinks that towns, cities and professionals, like plumbers or carpenters would use the vehicle.

'The planet is paying for that'

As a mechanical engineer, Antonini isn't anti-carhe's an enthusiast himself, admitting to his love of big pickup trucks and cars. But, he said he realizes things need to change in the future.

"The big pickup trucks, the big cars, any car bigger than you need is a waste," he said.

"You arepaying for that and the planet is paying for that."

There are two kinds of savings to be found with retrofitting a vehicle, Antonini said.The first is economical.

"Electricity is much cheaper than gas, but you save in maintenance as well because you don't need to change oil. You don't need to change filters," he said.

The other, Antonini said, is that by converting a vehicle to run on electricity, it also helps save on the pollution related to manufacturing a new car.

"If you convert a used car, you save twice as well because you are not producing CO2 during the production, you are not producing CO2 during the use," he said.

'It's not trash anymore, it's raw material'

For the same reason, Antonini is working on sourcing batteries a little closer to home.The ones he has purchased for the prototype are from China, but hehopes to source them in Canada, to cut down on the pollution in shipping them, he said.

Another goalis to use as many materials from the car as possible when retrofittingto stop partsending up atthe dump.

"When you smash that,it becomes a kind of metal trash. But if you separate it before, it's not trash anymore, it's raw material," he said.

"Everything you have inside the car you can use."

The garage has been working on the project since the start of November, and hopes to have a working prototype by the end of the month.

"We want to make a second prototype next year and, start using these cars on the road in March, April," he said.

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