A 27-year-old who converted a BMW into an electric car and worked for Tesla is convinced we think about electric cars all wrong
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Felix Ballendat in front of his electric BMW.
- At 22 years old, Felix Ballendat converted a BMW into an electric car in only two and a half months.
- He went on to secure an internship at Tesla, where he worked with the battery division responsible for working on the Model 3.
- Ballendat, now 27, found inspiration at Tesla for his startup Urmo, which has developed a prototype for a small electric vehicle that folds up.
- He thinks that the dominant approach to electric cars is wrong — and that small electric vehicles are the future.
He never uses the brake because he doesn’t have to.
"In principle, it drives like a bumper car at the fair. You go off the accelerator and it stops," says Felix Ballendat while sitting behind the wheel of his BMW Z3.
Ballendat drives what is probably the world's only 1998 BMW Z3 that has electric drive — because he converted it to an electric car himself. The car was his wedding car when he got married last year.
Ballendat speaks very fast and determined. The same is true of his ideas: "I always have wild ideas."
At the age of 27, he had already converted an old BMW into an electric car, completed an internship at Tesla, and developed his own electric vehicle.
He struggled in high school until he discovered electric motors
Ballendat parks the BMW in front of his office, which the Munich University of Applied Sciences supplied for his startup. Together with four other students and employees, he is developing a new electric vehicle called Urmo, which he intends to produce in series soon.
"I've stayed here on the couch several times before," says Ballendat, as he enters the room. There are various prototypes of his vehicle. The prizes he has already won decorate the walls. On the board, he and his colleagues calculated something using a curve.
For a long time he was not interested in economic figures. He just wanted to build. He has been fascinated by technology since he was a child.
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Ballendat designed the 3D printer that's now in the office of his startup.
"I was at an aircraft company and I found the work so exciting that learning was easy for me." Other apprentices were looking forward to the smoke break. Even at the age of 16, Ballendet was already interested in electric motors.
In his parents' garage, he set up his own workshop. He completed his apprenticeship, winning the title of the best apprentice in the state of Upper Austria. He went back to Germany and decided to catch up with by enrolling in a vocational school.
In just two and a half months, he built an electric car
It only took Ballendat two and a half months to convert the BMW Z3 into an electric car in 2012, a time when many people did not even know that cars can run without petrol or diesel. He bought the used 1998 BMW Z3 for 5,000 euros and designed plans.
"In the beginning, I photographed every part that I have removed. That was a lot of money for me at the time and I thought, I'll just build it back if it does not work. At some point there was no going back."
Ballendat had to saw off the side panels to make room for the numerous batteries. "I'm not a mechanic, so I was really scared to see if the car would work in the end," says Ballendat.
We think about electric vehicles completely wrong.
But that did it. After two and a half months of conversion, he turned the key and the electric car worked perfectly. With the BMW on a trailer, he drove to TÜV for Regensburg with his mother. His car needed to be certified. "Within a few minutes, the entire TÜV crew stood around my car and admired it. At the time, that was something very unusual".
At the end, Ballendat received approval for his electric car.
The electric vehicle has 200 kilometers of range, which was important to the builder. Shortly after completing the car, he began studying at the University of Applied Sciences which meant his new car had to make at least the 150 kilometers from Simbach to Munich without cargo. Even today he drives this route still.
Companies started contacting him after he rebuilt the car
When he rebuilt the car five years ago, he probably would not have expected the consequences. Motorsport magazines soon became aware of him, and an employee of BMW wanted him as an intern for their development department.
But by then, Ballendat already began to think bigger. In 2014, Tesla may not have been familiar to many Germans. However, Ballendat has been following the development of the company since a few years prior when he had seen a documentary about a German engineer involved in the Tesla Roadster.
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The interior of Ballendat's converted BMW.
This circumstance turned out to be a stroke of luck. Ballendat was given the opportunity to work in the team that was the first to deal with the Model 3 — at a time when the Model X wasn't even completed.
He took an internship at Tesla and got his big idea
He met Elon Musk several times.
"However, Musk did not see Tesla that often. He's more of a visionary and more present with his other baby, SpaceX," says Ballendat soberly.
In Palo Alto, the idea for his own electric vehicle was born.
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The prototype of the Urmo.
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The Urmo prototype folded up.
The vehicle looks almost like a small Segway, but it is much more compact and can be folded. The battery and software are in a thin plate under the driver's feet. The vehicle can reach up to 15 kilometers per hour, steering it by shifting your weight.
Urmo was originally called PMD (Personal Mobility Device), "but all business consultants advised me against the name," says Ballendat.
In fact, it was for the 27-year-old completely new terrain that he entered with the development. Originally, he just wanted to publish something on the crowdfunding website Kickstarter. But soon he realized that behind such a development also a business must be.
"I used to do things on my own at home. And suddenly I needed a business plan. "
He brought two co-founders on board, Jakob Karbaumer and David Heid.
He has been working on Urmo for two years
He has been working on the vehicle for two years now, which is longer than any project he’s worked on before. This can be quite nerve-wracking for someone like Ballendat, who has an idea and wants to put it into action quickly. The three founders have already won numerous awards and the university has included them in a startup incubator program.
The vehicle's environmental compatibility is a pleasant side effect for Ballendat. For him, sustainability is an aspect that only began to interest him later. First of all, it was the technology of the electric drive that fascinated him.
"Of course, the technology is now on and I would do a lot different today than back then," he says.
Ballendat is not so easily satisfied. He’s working on Urmo, but he already has a new idea in mind.. Next, he wants to develop something that flies.
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This article originally appeared at Business Insider Deutschland. This post originally appeared on Business Insider Deutschland and has been translated from German. Copyright 2017. Follow Business Insider Deutschland on Twitter.