2009 Maruti WagonR Gets Electric Conversion: 17-Year-Old Hatchback Reported at About ₹2.25 Lakh With 100 to 110 km Range

A 17-year-old 2009 Maruti WagonR from Madhya Pradesh has been converted from petrol to electric for around ₹2.25 lakh, according to a video by aftermarket workshop Sriaan Electric Vehicle. The converted hatchback is reported to deliver a top speed of about 75 km/h and a range of 100 to 110 km on a single charge. The original manual gearbox has been kept, and the car charges through an industrial 16A port placed in the fuel filler cap. Battery capacity and motor power have not been disclosed.

What Was Converted and How Much It Cost

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The car in question is a 2009 WagonR petrol, making it 17 years old. It comes from Madhya Pradesh. The workshop reportedly completed the electric conversion for a total of around ₹2.25 lakh.

WagonR has been on sale in India since 1999 and remains one of the best-selling cars in the country, offered with petrol and CNG engines. There is still no factory-built electric WagonR in production, which is the gap this kind of aftermarket conversion fills on a one-off basis.

How the Conversion Was Done

Here is what the workshop reportedly did, step by step:

• Engine removal: The original engine was taken out along with the gearbox-adjacent engine parts, fuel tank, exhaust system and related components.
• Gearbox retained: The original clutch, gearbox and flywheel were kept, and the main high-voltage electric motor is coupled directly to this gearbox. Most factory EVs use a single-speed transmission instead of a multi-ratio manual gearbox like this.
• Throttle: The existing throttle pedal is reused with a converter.
• Air conditioning: A dedicated 1 kW motor from an e-rickshaw runs the AC compressor, because the main electric motor does not keep spinning at idle the way a petrol engine does.
• Monitoring: A DC-DC converter and a smart display track battery and motor stats.
• Drive modes: The motor controller offers N, D and R modes, on top of the reverse gear already present in the manual gearbox.
• Packaging: The battery and motor sit in the engine bay on custom-fabricated supports, and the high-voltage wiring runs under the carpets.
• Charging: The car does not use a conventional CCS2 port. It has an industrial 16A port in the fuel filler cap, wired to an electrical board that connects to the battery.

Also Read: Delhi Plans ₹50,000 Incentive to Convert Old Petrol and Diesel Cars Into EVs

Reported Performance

These are workshop-reported figures from a video and have not been independently tested.

Evfy's Take

The price tag grabs attention, but the missing battery size is the number that decides whether ₹2.25 lakh is cheap or just small. A battery is the most expensive part of any EV, so a figure without a kWh rating cannot be compared with other conversions or with a new electric hatchback.

What the build does show is a practical, low-complexity design choice: keeping the existing gearbox means less custom drivetrain work, and the separate small motor for the AC shows how much of a petrol car's behaviour (like idle-driven accessories) has to be rethought. The 75 km/h top speed and roughly 100 km range point to city and short-commute use, not highway runs.

There is also a regulatory question. In India, converting a petrol car to electric is permitted under the Central Motor Vehicle Rules, but industry guidance says it requires a type-approved kit, installation by an authorised fitter and an RTO endorsement on the registration certificate. Typical industry estimates for approved conversions of mass-market cars run well above this build's price, roughly ₹4 lakh to ₹7 lakh. Reports on this WagonR do not say which route was followed, so buyers should treat this as a one-off example and not a template.

Also Read: Delhi EV Policy 2026 Approved: Only Electric Two-Wheelers Can Be Registered From April 2028