This is Climate Tech Distillery, a newsletter where I talk about one specific climate tech company every week.
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Today we’ll distill a company that converts all sorts of diesel vehicles (buses, trucks, boats, etc.) into electric ones in a fast and affordable way: KleanDrive 🇬🇧
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What Problem Does KleanDriveTackle❓
They specifically address the several challenges that come with the accelerating fleet electrification we’re seeing worldwide:
1. Diesel Pollution: Heavy-duty diesel vehicles like buses and trucks account for 20% of all nitrogen oxides (NOx) and 25% of PM2.5 pollution emitted by vehicles, creating severe air quality issues in urban areas. In the US alone, diesel pollution from transportation contributes to $100 billion in health damages every year.
2. Slow Replacement Cycles: Traditional fleet replacement strategies require waiting for vehicles to reach end-of-life before transitioning to electric, which can take 15-20 years.
10M buses globally, 97% still diesel
3. Electrification Costs: New electric buses cost 2-3x more than diesel equivalents. Same goes for trucks, coaches, etc. Public transport operators and fleet managers have to choose between financial sustainability and environmental responsibility.
4. Premature Vehicle Disposal: Replacing functional diesel vehicles with new electric ones wastes chassis, bodies, and components with remaining useful life. This creates unnecessary manufacturing emissions and resource consumption.
We have to electrify much more than just cars, but it’s not so easy…or is it?
Product / Service 📦
KleanDrive has created a scalable solution to swap diesel engines with their advanced ‘ePowertrain Module’ solution for a fully electric powertrain.
Revolutionary Conversion: They strip out the diesel engine and replace it with an electric one through a bespoke process designed for each vehicle model. Their solution is a plug and play, modular drivetrain that interfaces perfectly with the controls and instrumentation of the bus/truck/coach/boat.
Top Tier Tech: The powertrain uses CATL’s best battery cells with massive capacity and top Voith motors, providing the range and reliability needed for demanding commercial operations. The dashboard is also refreshed with advanced, modern tech.
On-Site Installation: Conversions are carried out at the fleet operator’s premises, reducing time off the road. Vehicle chassis and body modifications are kept to a minimum since each repower is specifically engineered to fit the former diesel engine space.
Component Reuse: Diesel-related components removed are returned to the customer for reuse within the remaining conventional fleet, maximizing asset value and reducing waste.
Cost Advantage: On average, for 1 single deck bus you get annual operational savings of $50K (fuel + maintenance) and you save an extra $250K for not needing to buy a new electric bus. Try their calculator to see specific savings in your case.
Market 🌐
The electric bus/truck/coach markets are growing quickly (CAGR of 14% for buses between now and 2032). So is the retrofit ev powertrain market (valued at $66bn in 2024 and growing at a CAGR of 7.4% until 2034). Government mandates for zero-emission transit and air quality regulations are really accelerating adoption worldwide.
Lifetime cost electric vs diesel buses (2018 data)
Other Key Players
All electric bus/truck manufacturers (BYD, Yutong, etc.). They keep making them cheaper but still far from the price of converting existing diesel ones.
Pepper Motion 🇩🇪: Provides modular electrification kits and software for vehicle manufacturers and retrofitters.
Most companies focus on specific vehicle types, regional markets, or managing/optimizing existing ev fleets. KleanDrive differentiates with bespoke engineering for many types of heavy commercial vehicles and on-site fleet electrification.
Founding Story 🦄
Kleanbus (now KleanDrive) was founded in London in 2021 by Joe Tighe, Jamie Doyle and Rob Gretton. Joe and Jamie met in high school. After decades of different career paths and seeing the effects of fossil fuels they asked themselves what they could do.
They met Rob while evaluating engineering solutions to energy storage and generation. After lots of market and mechanical research, they realized they could make the most impact by removing dirty diesel engines from roads.
They discovered they could transform existing diesel buses into clean EVs at a fraction of the cost of buying new ones. They could both stimulate and enable the change to EVs while benefiting from the massive innovations and regulations driving this revolution.
They have repowered thousands of buses in the UK and US, secured over £1M in investment, and in 2024 rebranded to KleanDrive to expand their tech to other types of vehicles (trucks, coaches, boats).
Top Impact Stats 📈
1. Converting just 1000 buses saves 1.6M tonnes of CO2, £86M in damages from NOx and £5M in damages from particulate matter.
2. They use 0 rare earth materials, and all locally sourced components to minimize their impact.
3. 80% lifecycle emissions reduction and savings of +$300K per vehicle.
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