We have been working in green industry developments for a long time. We have a strong focus on clean technologies, starting the company EcoEnGines bv. (EEG Ltd) back in 2005. EEG funds the e-Rovers project right from the start too.
Our team didn’t just appear out of thin air; we pooled our combined technical experience of over 150 years and set to work. Join. Convert your offroad car to an EV (Electric Vehicle). Change your life too, do not wait any longer. (“frog in the pan” on page #1).
The small e-Rovers team stopped talking in 2015 and started designing, testing and building things. We brought all our knowledge together. We formed a strong team of four people, all over the age of 55, in addition to our existing activities. Four different technical disciplines, joined two years ago by a young graduate in mechatronics. One long-serving member has retired. A close-knit team of four.
We couldn’t find an electric motor anywhere that we could buy and fit onto a shaft, so we simply set about designing one and building prototype e-motors that met those high standards. We’ve now succeeded in doing so. A three-in-one powerhouse that was not allowed to be any larger than an original differential.
Founder: “I live in this world too and I want to drive clean offroad. It feels strange having my exhaust in the countryside”. More and more people are feeling that way. Strangely enough, more and more people are realising that driving an electric car really is cheaper. All the advantages of a fuel car are lost. Charge your battery in 20 minutes for hours of quiet driving again. That last annoyance has gone too.
Photo: Catharina Photography 2026, founder on the coast of the Wadden Sea, a tidal stretch of sea, stretching from Den Helder Netherlands to Skagen in northern Denmark, Europe. A 500km 312miles long UNESCO World Heritage Site, where the deterioration of the natural environment has also become clearly apparent. The sea level is rising slowly and the seabed is slowly going down, partly due to natural gas extraction, amongst other things. As a result, the period during which the seabed is dry and exposed to air is decreasing dramatically; consequently, billions of animals will eventually suffocate. That is what it is.
Major projects completed
Over 150 years of practical experience and numerous major projects completed worldwide. That is our team foundation. Thinking outside the box, focusing more on what we want than on what is possible. That’s when you get stuck. Not us. e-Rovers was born.
“Get on with it. That’s what everyone should do,” says the founder, “think in terms of opportunities, not difficulties”. We are also united by the typical Dutch mentality.
Below, you can read about our projects and also find out when we realised that the oil companies had known for much longer that things were going to go wrong. At the bottom, you’ll find our own “petrolhead” years.
HISTORY
Founder: it all started in 1979, when, after years of driving and racing Alfa Romeo’s, I nearly had my driving licence taken away (for speeding too often). I’ve bought a car that simply isn’t fast. Then I cannot losses my licence I realised. And so I bought my first Land Rover 88 Series 2a. Had lots of fun and enjoyed driving offroad in the countryside with our Labrador. I started soon competing: trials on impossible terrain. I modified the 2a until I could easily drive sideways over a crash barrier and enters into military grounds nearby. Colour sahara dust, 4-cyl petrol (pic not my car). Not before long, I bought a Range Rover, now a collector’s classic RRC in Churchill Green, with a 3.5-litre V8, a three-speed gearbox and high and low ranges. I let the air out of the big tyres and off I went, straight into the mud. After all, I’m 22 years old. Many Land Rovers were to follow over the next 47 years. That passion is still there when you do what you love. That’s also part of our team.
We’ve always been working on and modifying cars and bikes. For me the first four Citroën 2CV and Diane in 1975, followed by Lancia, Alfa Romeo, Saab, Bentley T1, Jaguars, Fiat 130, etc. as well as bikes as Moto Guzzi, Laverda, Husqvarna, Yamaha XT500 and Cagiva Marathon PD (Paris-Dakar). I’ve always been busy improving the cars and making sure they never broke down. Tinkering is still great fun, but now I do it in a heated garage with a car lift. All the team members have had similar experiences, apart from the youngster. We’re going into all this in detail because there are plenty of windbags about these days who think they know it all…
Examples of other projects
A brief overview of our past developments. We designed and build biofuel gensets (based on Fiat Lancia Iveco FPT diesel engines) around 2006 and developed hybrid-electric drives for small cargo ships, such as waste collection ships for the canals in Amsterdam and Berlin. As for hybrid water taxis in Venice (e-Marine). This way reduces fuel pollution by 75% whilst maintaining the same power output. As you’ll need to buy half the fuel, the investment pays for itself very quickly within 2 years.
Designing EV-hybrid-citybusses in the UK and also experimented with flywheel technology (to store energy without an expensive battery) as a direct follow-up to our high-performance bio-gen sets, which work perfectly together in a flywheel electric powered city bus.
Use of bio based PBS polyester and hemp reinforcements (instead of glassfibers) back in 2007 for our electric boats NoNoX (a typical dutch sloep). Also designing tiny houses using only organic waste materials. Pressed into thick, made strong walls that you can quickly build like Lego blocks. Founder: “At the factory, we could fit all the electrical wiring, plumbing, doors and windows as standard, with integrated solar panels. If you’re going to build it, do it properly and smartly from the start”.
We’re starting adding hydrogen gas to our bio-generators to make the exhaust gas cleaner. We’ve discovered that a good idea can make it. But very difficult to produce a cheaper product. Often, the entire energy chain involved in making something new is simply “overlooked” (or not told…). Take hydrogen, for example. Elsewhere on this site, we go deeper into this topic: covering alternative fuels for internal combustion engines: takes more energy to produce than it saves. And if you don’t simply state this, you end up with a dangerously wrong picture.
2026: We stopped doing these eco-houses because governments continued to build the old way. You can still order the eco-generator sets for boats from us. Our 1.3jtd are now available for boats from 8 metres (27 feet) up to 15 metres long (50 feet) based on the Iveco 3L. Our own computer and software drives the common rail pressure system. This is also well suited for military use in heavy 4×4 army trucks. As long as there are places where internal combustion engines are sadly needed. Because EVs are not always a viable option for several reasons.
So we were driving along the beach at Terschelling in 2015 and thought: “we can’t carry on letting the exhaust out like this. That doesn’t feel right”. And e-Rovers was soon born.
Today
We started by listing all the ways to convert an existing 4×4 into an electric vehicle without spending a fortune. It’s easy to design one for 100K, but what about for 35K? That became our design target.
e-Rovers is a small innovative Dutch company, operating at the intersection of sustainable mobility, smart engineering and big supporter of the circular economy. The result is a dutch development of our 3-in-1 electric powerhouse. We are a producing factory now and undependent. Product first. But always bear in mind that, at a later stage, you will need to grow and convince others to join. We have been funding this project with our own money since 2015. Plug-it-in & charge & go.
New EU-rules, a great help
Above, we look at a number of projects that came to a standstill due to a lack of understanding or an inept civil servant. But there are also many things going well. Such as this:
e-Rovers re-use 85+% of any car/truck. We obtain today these new rules allready. (source: https://link.europa.eu/Yfvhjk) Visual by Karikatūra.Lv.
Outside Europe
Founder: The challenge of switching from fossil fuels to electricity is a global issue. There are loads of nature conservationists all over the world. Our team doesn’t just focus on the Netherlands, looking at what could be improved, but also on all the countries of Europe and, for the past year certainly, on Africa as well. A lot is set to change there too. Africa is a vast continent and is also grappling with costs, pollution and the need to plan wisely for the future.
But there are many more nature reserves that are struggling with emissions. Just take a look: The first is Borana Park, Kenya, which approached us to help resolve a problem:
https://www.thelongrun.org/our-members Can we connect a group of people who are willing to contribute?
Graphics Doeke De Steur (Creative Media Network), based on an idea by Gijs de Jong, in response to numerous requests from Africa.
Why AFRICA
The main issue is in Africa that those 4×4 cars, with 600,000 km/375,000 miles on the clock, are reaching the end of its useful & technical life. An engine, gearbox and two axles overhaul can be done for 20K, but that would mean another 30 years of burning fuel in the middle of nature reserves. How can we prevent this? e-Rovers is the way to go.
A sturdy, reliable 4×4 EV isn’t available to buy. We’ve heard the story of a new hybrid Defender (above) that broke down four times whilst out among lions and hippos… lovely. The Defender was sent back: unusable. Below is an article about the car industry today: the “car supermart”, where factory is building the same platform – but not a rugged strong watertight 4×4 EV platform.
About us: changing views
We changed our views after the ugly truths about the oil industry came to light. The Club of Rome also released alarming figures. We decided to focus on a larger global market: that of high-emission fuel burning off-road vehicles. Driving environmental offences, so to speak.
A 4×4 uses three times as much fuel per kilometre/mile, so the impact is significant for this group of offroad cars. The plan was to focus on 4x4s only.
These rugged cars are indispensable. Everywhere. But they aren’t available as EVs. Not by a long shot. (Read our article on the modern e-platform on page 1 and about EV-platform strategy below)
We want to help reduce pollution on Earth, in an affordable way and in a way that is easy to implement anywhere in the world using our e-set. Stop destroying the Earth.
Check this out
We are keen to promote all the initiatives that we also support. We’ve got a really cool event here in the Netherlands: anyone can take a test drive on the Formula 1 circuit in an electric car of their choice. You get to race through the very same bend where Max Verstappen had that spectacular crash. How brilliant is that? Max with 50% battery, and you with 100%.
Translation: Take a EV-test drive around the circuit.
OWNERSHIP
We believe in taking full ownership and responsibility in every aspect of our work. Our most remarkable achievements come from teams that embrace this mindset. The idea is to empower our people with the right conditions to own their projects and ultimately, drive success.
Oops and shock
We are often asked this question: “when was the moment you realised that things were going wrong?” How we’ve shifted from relying on fossil fuels (petrolhead) to trying to be self-sufficient: drastically reducing your carbon footprint. Dirtydancing:
The first reports came as early as 1982: Shell knew, BP knew, they all knew ? (Bilderberg conferences have been addressing major global issues since 1954, started in the Netherlands and this year in Stockholm)
Drill baby Drill says USA today, but around 2005, the first media came out that there had been reports (by Shell) since 1982 about how bad the pollution actually is. A scandal.
How will Shell and BP earn their money in the future? “New oil and gas fields will never be profitable”. After years of climate resolutions, shareholder collective Follow This is changing tack. Let Shell and BP explain how they will remain profitable in a world with less oil and gas, says founder Mark van Baal. The question is whether oil companies share these concerns.
“Until we stop burning fossil fuels, the climate will continue to warm and heat waves will become more frequent and intense. It’s as simple as that” (Frederieke Otto, climate scientist, april 2024).
“The climate problem is well known; stop burning fossil fuels now it’s time for solutions” says Bernice Notenboom, who has crossed deserts, reached the South Pole on skis, climbed Mount Everest, and worked for NASA and ESA. (Dutch newspaper Trouw, 11 October 2025).
e-MARINE
We started designing and manufacturing a cleaner boatdrive system back in 2005. Designing a hybrid propulsion systems, primarily for ships. Our biofuel-hybride-electric e-drive is designed for commercial taxiboats (Venice, Berlin, Amsterdam etc).
A good example to dig dieper: Venice. Did you know that, on average, a single water taxi in Venice consumes 200 litres of diesel a day? And most of the fuel they burn from the airport to the city and back at 45 km/h, which is 25 knots. EV ships aren’t the answer to speeding, but cutting back costs by 75% is easy. The entire investment will be re-couped within two years. Do it Venice. We’re talking to a brick wall again. People don’t want to change, even though they know full well that things are going wrong. Strange, isn’t it? We develop solutions that solve problems since 2005. But people don’t listen to us enough. It’s a bit of a frustration, but it is what it is.
But Venice’s refusal is getting even worse. The strange thing is that the city of Venice pays all the diesel costs, whilst the taxi boat owners couldn’t care less that we’re two-thirds cheaper. They’re not the ones paying the fuel-bill, are they?
Saves the user money: three-quarters of their annual fuel costs. The investment pays for itself within two years. We can still supply this hybride drives.
We almost bought the taxi on the right, just to build a demo at our own expense… We decided to stay focused on e-Rovers and invest the money in our own electric motor. Fortunately, that’s what we did.
If, by any chance, a senior official from Venice happens to be reading this, please send us an email and we’ll be right over…
From e-Marine to e-Rovers
It turned out that the step up from a hybrid biodiesel generator-powered water-taxi with two electric motors to a 4×4 wasn’t that big after all. The 4×4 market is very large, much larger than for watertaxi in Venice and Berlin. So we switched to offroad rugged cars. After all, there are still hundreds of thousands of them on the road.
Universal e-platforms: seems clever but is actually not clever
As we explained earlier, car manufacturers called OEM aren’t set to launch a truly powerful, indestructible 4×4 EV any time soon. Read more about it here.
Nowadays, all car manufacturers are producing a huge number of variants using exactly the same platform. As a result, the unique selling points of each brand are completely fading away. They’re gone – it’s all look-a-likes. This presents a huge extra advantage for e-Rovers.
VW =Audi, Lamborghini, Porsche, Seat, Skoda and Cupra. Stellantis = Alfa Romeo, Citroën, Chrysler, Dodge, Lancia, Maserati, Opel, Peugeot and Jeep. Called Smart Car Platform. Chineese Geely = Volvo, Polestar, Zeekr, Lotus. We’ll just mention three of them – there are eleven big car factories in total.
Because of the platform strategy, they’re all losing face. None of the eleven manufacturers have a genuine 4×4 electric vehicle, capable of handling the heavy-duty work of a Land Rover or Toyota Land Cruiser etc, in their future plans. There is simply no money available for this. It fits in no-platform. They are too expensive to new develop and the market is too small to sell these. But that is no solution for the more than 3 million genuine 4x4s currently on the road, or in the furture to convert. These 3 milion are being left to fend for themselves. That is precisely our market. At the moment, all that is being produced are meaningless, run-of-the-mill cars, look-a-likes. Boooooring. Nobodies.
This is known as the “platform strategy”: it means that, as a car manufacturer, you base as many models as possible on the same technical platform. Take VW, for example: the Cupra Born is a modified VW ID.3, the Škoda Superb is a Passat, the VW ID.4 is an Audi Q4 e-tron, and the Škoda Enyak is also the same as the small Porsche or big Audi e-tron, and so on. (Source: article by Bas van Putten, NRC, 1 August 2026).
Look, we’re making a perfect electric axle that’ll fit any 4×4. Even those with independent suspension. What if we were to build a new EV 4×4 using a newly galvanised chassis and a new body from a Defender? We’ll explore this idea further on the last page. then we’ll build a distinctive 4×4 from scratch too… Not boooooring but hip & cult. Same price as a Tesla or medium EV you can buy new….. Intersting no?
We make strong, sturdy e-axles and no longer need the red bulb. We don’t have any gremlins either (check engine light), as can be seen in the top drawing, sadly in a panic.
To look beyond the horizon
We’re thinking about the future, for the world, but also, after all, as a commercial enterprise (without government funding) and what else might be possible later on. Here’s a glimpse of what we think might be possible:
If we look further ahead, based on our e-axles, which we can build into a new chassis, something that is already happening on a large scale. There is one final step to take: the bodywork is also currently being redesigned. Sold new also.
Yes, e-Rovers can produce a new all-wheel-drive vehicle powered by electricity. But the time is to early for that now. First, let’s deliver the thousands of 4×4 vehicles and help those people: no more burning fuel for the next 25 years.
The photo was taken in China (yellow Toyota Landcruiser, black Land rover Defender 90), but these panels are also being manufactured more and more in good old-fashioned England. So we could start building a new EV 4×4 too, couldn’t we? e-Rovers and e-Landcruisers.
e-Rovers is Dutch
Why does this e-axel idea come from the Netherlands? Probably because we are a small country, with a large population polluting cows, pigs and chickens, shitting all day long (116 milion animals for food on 18 miljion people, CBS). Too many tulips and a dirty industrial sector;
We feel a strong need to protect the environment from the mindset of ‘making money at the expense of destroying nature’. Now, this will be a tough nut to crack, particularly for all the generations after us.
By cutting back and changing your mindset, we can quickly build up a strong resistance to this. Circular economy, the polluter pays, price increases for polluting activities. Trias-Economica. And together we can converting thousands of 4x4s that already exist (!) to electric and clean, making them free for the future. That is the reason behind the creation of e-Rovers.
photo: Catharina Photography 2026
If you know half of the Netherlands lies below sea level (dikes). A real necessity, to act now. And sea levels are going to rise. Oops. https://www.ipcc.ch/report/special-report-on-climate-change-and-cities/
This has turned us into activists. We are supporting all those nature lovers around the World: https://www.thelongrun.org/our-members check them out.
The Long Run society clearly shows that equipping all those parks with e-Rovers technology is a massive undertaking for an investor. The impact we were able to calculate is equivalent to eliminating the pollution levels of 22 cities the size of New York…
ex-Petrolheads
We’re leaving this “about us” part with humor, to show you that making a switch is perfectly possible. Our frog leaves the pan in 2005 (EEG).
Even if you’re head over heels in love with your car & sounds. V10 Formula 1 in 1995…..
Our team’s belief itself has changed over the past 25 years. We are demonstrating here that we have always been technically minded, certainly in the past as well.
We used to be petrolheads too. The whole team. We dip into our own pockets. Here are some examples from the past. It is only fair to admit that we have also been huge polluters.
We love Rob Slotemaker racing his 550Hp Camaro V8 at the Zandvoort race track. The Dutch most famous racing driver, far ahead of Max Verstappen. I was racing myself and having fun in Alfa Romeo’s, FF1600, Oldsmobile V8 and Husqvarna enduro bikes during the 90ties. Speeding up wooden Hacker crafts V8 on lakes.
Founder was a classic-boat broker during the 80ties and importer for Europe for Hacker Crafts USA. Company Mulder & Vogelzang “Boats of Character“. Picture and article “The Return of the Hacker” by Rob Maynard and Peter Chesworth in the Monthly Classic Boat magazine. He’s on the steer in a 26″ Hacker Craft 350Hp Crusaders.
We love Baby Bootlegger, originally used a 1.000 cubic-inch V-12 Lycoming aircraft WW1 engine, replaced by a water-cooled Hispano-Suiza V-8 aircraft converted to a marine engine, producing 300Hp. Designed by George Crouch in 1924, built by Henri Nevins. Won the Gold Cup in 1924 and 1925:
Watching Racing Wooden & Classic boats with exotic names such as Pardon Me, Thunderbird, El Lagarto, Bootlegger, Peerless, Dolphin, Kitty Hawk, Belle Isle Bear Cats, My Sweetie, among others. In the 1930’s, the celebrated boats were named “The Steinway of Runabouts”. After the war this continued:
“As the Scriptures said in the past, carry on until it lasts…” quote Guido Moroni, friend of Bruno Bonini and Achille Castoldi (check wikipedia). Just put a V12 Ferrari petrol engine in it and off you go!
Check him out: the last real innovator of the petrol racing bike: John Kenton Britten was a New Zealand mechanical engineer who designed a world-record-setting motorcycle with innovative features and materials. We love him.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Britten
Our team changed in 2005, we “killed” the petrolhead in our brain.
An interesting point for discussion is whether we should also convert our heritage buildings to electric power. We don’t think so. The pollution caused by these rare monuments is negligible – so minimal it’s impossible to measure.
An exquisitely beautiful example is the 1932 Rolls-Royce 20/25 J.Gurney Nutting. RR supplied only the chassis. Coachbuilders, who used to make horse-drawn carriages, kept pace with developments in the motor car. This explains why only a few of the following coachbuilders have survived as a form of art. Egerton, Radfort, Barker, Hooper, Mulliner, Park Ward, Weyman, Gurney Nutting, Thrupp & Maberly etc.
Only 3,800 were ever made based on the same RR chassis, engine, unto bulkhead, but 80% of them are still on the road today…….. Good cars always find a new happy owner.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolls-Royce_20/25
But, actually, we all know by now that we cannot carry on destroying nature like this. So let’s stop it and cut our consumption by at least 50% each.
Starting today.
END, 3 pages to go.