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Made-in-Ethiopia electric cars on the market

Made-in-Ethiopia electric cars on the market

SATURDAY, 03 APRIL 2010

By Hayal Alemayehu One may find it hard to imagine a technology-based “green” venture to take place in country with an infant industry and an economy, by and large, based on agriculture. Yet, Ethiopia has become one of the few destinations in the world where electric cars are made with Freestyle Plc, an Ethiopian company owned by an Italian businessman and shareholders, taking the bold move. Only this week, the company introduced two models of electric cars to the market, Elettra 5.0 and Elettra 8.5, with a price tag of 185,000 and 205,000 birr. Produced under the trade mark Solaris, the 5-seat electric cars could travel 96 to 130 km (depending on the slope of the road) after being charged for eight hours. While the company is currently assembling six cars a weak, it is looking to raise its weekly production to 35 within four to six months’ time after the first phase of the company’s assembling plant set up in Legetafo, on the periphery of Addis Ababa, is completed. Freestyle Solaris has established partnership with 37 companies around the globe which are producing the components of the electric cars it is assembling here, according to Signor Carlo Pironti, the general manager of the company, who briefed local and foreign journalists on Tuesday on the newly made electric cars introduced into the market. The manager said that customers could save from 750 to, 1800 birr in driving the electric cars compared to the cost they incur when driving other fuel cars and old automobiles. According to Pironti, the company has already secured the license that allows it to assemble the electric cars while it is holding talks with concerned authorities in Europe to export its products. The company plans to export fifty percent of its cars to Europe and other markets overseas. While some question the affordability of buying such vehicles in the Ethiopian market, the manager said that the company had taken fifteen orders from customers for whom it would deliver the cars in a matter of weeks. It took the company a solid six years to develop the project. So far, it has invested over 20 million birr in the initially phase of the project.

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