Out with the engine, exhaust and fuel tank. Everything that pollutes and makes noise disappears. What remains is the Vespa style – timeless and unchanging: that's the idea at the heart of Newtron's work.
Transforming a vintage Vespa into a "modern" electric vehicle, with full type approval, is a real and achievable possibility. And, as we'll see shortly, it's not just a "simple" technical conversion. Let's take a step back. If you're thinking about an electric two-wheeler, you have two options: buy something new (and the market now offers a wide choice of electric scooters), or breathe new life into something that already exists – something with a history, perhaps a timeless charm, tied to your family's story, and in many cases forgotten for years beneath a layer of dust in a cellar or garage. The key word is retrofit, and we'll explain that in more detail shortly.
First, though, there may be another reason – a less "sentimental" one – to electrify an old family scooter: in Milan, for example, "polluting" motorbikes and mopeds will only be allowed to circulate until 1 October 2027, when (barring new extensions and last-minute changes of heart) a ban on access and circulation in Area B and Area C will come into force for two-stroke (i.e. mixed-fuel) Euro 2 and 3 motorbikes and mopeds, and four-stroke petrol Euro 0, 1 and 2 vehicles.
Applied to a Vespa, this concept takes on an almost poetic dimension. Because the Vespa is not simply a scooter: it's an icon, a fragment of collective Italian identity, an object that spans generations without ever truly ageing. That's why, since 2018, the new Vespa Piaggio models have also been available in an electric version. But it will never be your old, beloved family Vespa… And that's where the kit developed by Newtron comes in – Europe's first manufacturer of electric requalification systems certified by the Ministry of Transport. It's a retrofit kit that allows you to transform a vintage family Vespa into a "zero" local-emission vehicle, without losing any of what made it unique, starting with its style.
Let's first revisit the pillars of the circular economy, the so-called 4 Rs: reduce, reuse, recycle and recover. Transforming a vintage Vespa into an electric vehicle, then, has more than sentimental value. In the debate around the ecological transition, the tendency is to think in terms of replacement: old cars versus new cars, combustion engines versus electric motors, past versus future. But this logic carries an enormous hidden cost. Every new vehicle brings with it the environmental burden of its own production: the extraction of raw materials, industrial processing, global logistics, and energy impact.
A carbon footprint that, especially for electric vehicles, begins to accumulate long before the vehicle covers its first kilometre. The retrofit proposed by Newtron turns this equation on its head. Nothing is produced – instead, things are regenerated. The Vespa's frame remains, the bodywork remains, the identity of the iconic Piaggio scooter remains. What changes is the mechanical heart: the combustion engine and everything around it are removed and replaced with a purpose-designed, complete electric powertrain. The result is a vehicle that is new in substance but iconic in form.
Of course, the Newtron "recipe" is not applicable to every Vespa model. The retrofit applies to specific models and years of production: from the Granturismo 125L of 2003 through to the GTS 310 of 2025, taking in the GTS 250, GTS 300, GTV, LXV and Sei giorni – different models united by construction architectures compatible with the electric conversion kit. We're talking about compatibility spanning more than twenty years of production, which, when you look closely, is itself an act of circular economy: it means that millions of Vespa scooters already in circulation can be transformed without being scrapped.
Vehicles forgotten in garages, passed down from parents to children over the years, are experiencing a technological second youth. "We want to demonstrate that the electric transition can also happen through intelligent reuse. It's not just about technology, but about industrial culture: preserving what exists by improving it," explained Nicola Venuto, founder and CEO of Newtron.
But what does this mean from a technical standpoint? The original engine, fuel tank, exhaust pipe and cooling circuit are all removed. Everything else stays the same. The unmistakable Vespa style remains unchanged, as does the characteristic riding position. The only things that change are the silence that accompanies the journey and the absence of emissions leaving the air cleaner. The conversion includes a new electric motor (which, in addition to eliminating emissions, delivers a more responsive feel compared to the original combustion engine, with a minimal and barely noticeable increase in weight), and a lithium-ion battery pack rated at 48 volts and 100 Ah.
Range? Around 120 real-world kilometres and up to 5,000 charge cycles (which translates into several years of daily use). A full charge takes 4 hours from a standard domestic socket. The two available configurations – 11 kW and 14 kW – correspond to 125 cc and 300 cc scooters respectively in terms of performance. Naturally, an electrified Vespa can enter ZTL restricted traffic zones, is exempt from road tax and has significantly reduced running costs. And there's more: no vibrations, no noise and a more enjoyable ride. There's even an electric reverse gear, handy for urban manoeuvres.
But let's return to the environmental impact of retrofit. The most immediate is the reduction of local emissions: an electrified vintage Vespa produces no nitrogen oxide, fine particulate matter, or tailpipe CO₂. This translates into a concrete, measurable benefit in terms of urban air quality. But there is a second level, less visible yet equally important: the reduction of waste. Every Vespa that is converted instead of scrapped is one less item entering the disposal cycle — meaning fewer metals to recycle, less plastic to dispose of, and less energy wasted in treating end-of-life materials. To be clear, retrofit alone does not eliminate the complexity of this cycle, but it does postpone it, often by many years.
As for regulations, full compliance with Ministerial Decree 141 of 2022 — which governs the type-approval procedures for the electric conversion of two-wheeled vehicles — ensures that every Vespa converted by Newtron is fully road-legal. Whether you want to convert a family Vespa or purchase one that has already been converted, the customer doesn't have to do a thing: Newtron handles the kit's type approval, installation by qualified technicians, and testing with the vehicle licensing authority, including the update of the vehicle registration document.
Finally, a cost assessment. The price of the conversion kit, for those who already own a vintage Vespa, starts at around 3,590 euros, while purchasing one of the already-converted and reconditioned electric Vespas can cost over 7,000 euros. In all cases, the warranty is 24 months on the vehicle and 5 years or 100,000 km on the batteries. On top of this, any available government incentives can significantly reduce the final cost.