West-Midlands’ plant and tool specialist WHC Hire Services is the first company in the UK to offer customers an electric Kubota mini excavator, using the company’s Requip Electric Retrofit conversion technology.

The machine, built with local dealer Lister Wilder, will be offered to customers from the start of 2026, as the business looks to gauge interest from end-users on site.

WHC, based in Tewkesbury with depots in Worcester and Chipping Norton, first tried a full electric mini excavator in 2019 and it currently runs an electric van in its service fleet.

The company recognises that an electric mini excavator is not going to suit every application; the high initial purchase cost and therefore hire rate of many options make a move to zero emissions a difficult juggling act, it says. Kubota’s Electric Retrofit has been designed to make that transition to battery power more cost effective.

The process requires an existing diesel machine, in the case of WHC one of its two-year old Kubota KX019-4 models. The Kubota dealer, in this case

For WHC’s new offering, Lister Wilder removed the diesel engine and ancillaries from a two-year-old Kubota KX019-4 before installing an 18kW lithium-ion battery pack and an electric motor, offering similar power to the diesel engine. The electric motor drives the machine’s regular hydraulic pump, delivering similar performance and allowing the KX019-4e to work with all of the standard machine’s attachments and tools.

The conversion includes an on-board battery charger, with a conventional Type 2 connector in the side panel of the machine. This allows customers to connect to an EV charger, or to use a variety of electrical inputs, from a 240V domestic supply through to three-phase on-site power. The battery delivers around five or six hours of continuous run time and can be recharged overnight, or in a matter of hours, depending on electrical supply.

The machine can be offered to customers as a battery electric mini excavator, but when the time comes to update the fleet, it can either be sold as an electric model, or the battery can be removed and reused on another excavator, while the diesel engine is reinstalled and the machine marketed as a conventional diesel. This reduces the cost of the electric machine, when compared to a ground-up battery model, allowing WHC to offer the KX019-4e at a hire rate that is far closer to a diesel model.

“The real beauty of the machine versus the competition though, is the weight,” says WHC managing director James Clutterbuck. “We have designed and built a trailer that can carry the electric machine, with buckets and a breaker, that is still within the permitted towing weight.”

At just 1,860kg, the electric conversion is close to the mass of the standard diesel model, unlike many competitors that sit well above 2-tonnes. WHC designed its own patented trailer, built by Ifor Williams, that carries a mini excavator, breaker and buckets without the need for multiple straps or chains to tie the machine down.

“We’re bringing a new option to the customer,” Clutterbuck said. “We’ve been doing a lot of work on sustainability and carbon reduction and I’d like to think that we can get a wider audience for it with this machine conversion.”

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