The project, developed in Italy and presented in Turin, also marks the transition of retrofit from a craft practice to a scalable industrial solution.

Who would have ever thought that the cheapest electric car on the market would be an old Fiat Panda? Let’s clear up any doubts: we’re talking about the very one with the timeless, boxy lines designed in 1980 by Giorgetto Giugiaro. The project is called Panda Ne and was born in the mechatronics classrooms of the Polytechnic University of Turin.

The initiative, as described by the startup’s founders and the project’s industrial partners, “transforms one of the most beloved small cars of all time into a fully electric vehicle through an industrialized retrofit system.”

In short, based on the features just outlined, it’s clear that this is a vehicle designed exclusively for urban use: with the Panda NE, going more than 200 km in one stretch is quite challenging, and the idea is precisely to save as much as possible where internal combustion cars are least efficient-city traffic.

The Nova Energia project, developed by ElectroFit Systems - an innovative startup and spin-off of the Polytechnic University of Turin - transforms the historic car designed by Giugiaro and launched on the market in 1980 into a zero-emissions vehicle, ideal for everyday urban journeys.

The initiative transforms one of the most beloved small cars of all time, the Fiat Panda, into a fully electric vehicle through an industrialized retrofit system.

“Today there is a lot of talk about software-defined vehicles,” explained Stefano Carabelli, the project lead. “It means making the car configurable and adaptable to the user.

We do this through dynamic models, bench testing, and advanced simulation systems.”

Said with the Panda as the subject, it almost sounds Dadaist - but it works.

“Why build new cars from scratch when we can make those already on the road more sustainable?” This is the question that ElectroFit Systems - a Turin-based company founded as a spin-off of the Polytechnic University of Turin and specializing in the design and production of kits to convert existing vehicles to electric, the so-called retrofit - aims to answer.

The most sustainable car might be the one that already exists. From this idea comes Panda NE, a Nova Energia project developed by ElectroFit Systems, an innovative startup and spin-off of the Polytechnic University of Turin.

The project was conceived and developed entirely in the Piedmont region, bringing together local industrial and artisanal expertise and still managing to generate innovation. “Not everything that belongs to the past has to be set aside,” added Foglietta. “We can recover and transform what we already have, giving new life to objects that are part of our history. Panda NE is a concrete example of applied circular economy.”

This “miracle” of new technology has already received approval from the Ministry of Transport - an example unique in Italy - and has also passed certification tests equivalent to those required for a newly manufactured vehicle.

Of course, the project comes at a cost, and it can’t exactly be called cheap: it’s around €15,000, just slightly less than a brand-new electric car. However, the project embraces a compelling circular economy approach, applied in a significant way to the automotive sector.