Oswald is a black Morris Minor from 1953. Matthew Quitter, who founded London Electric Cars in 2017 to save vintage gas guzzlers from the scrap heap, converted Oswald to battery power.

The company, which is located beneath a railway bridge in Vauxhall, uses electric motors and batteries that would otherwise be discarded to replace combustion engines in historic cars. Electric vehicles with operating motors and batteries that have been written off by insurance agencies, such as Teslas and Nissan Leafs, generally have these parts removed. For each conversion, the group presently charges roughly £20,000, which is not cheap. However, the business claims that it intends to reduce the price to £5,000 to make it more accessible to a wider market.

The government of the United Kingdom now gives a £2,500 subsidy for the purchase of a new electric vehicle. According to Mr. Quitter, conversion incentives should also be considered. “Wasting millions of old petrol and diesel cars on our highways is a shame,” he adds, claiming that government EV discounts encourage scrapping.