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Admiral Mobility to Assemble Electric Vehicles In UAE | |
| Sumita Pawar |
According to the media, Admiral Mobility, a subsidiary of US-based Admiral Corporation of America, is planning to set up a plant in the UAE to assemble electric vehicles, first e-trucks and later electric cars, in collaboration with China’s Geely Farizon Commercial Group.
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Frank Bernthaler, Chief Operating Officer, Admiral Mobility said, their first step was to enter into a strategic partnership with Geely Farizon New Energy Commercial Vehicle Group for the rollout of electric commercial vehicles across the Middle East.
Admiral Mobility would bring 5,000 electric commercial vehicles to the Middle East. The commitment comprises 3,000 e-trucks, split between 6 tonnes and 8 tonnes and a further 2,000 electric Farizon Supervans, he added.
Of the 5,000 e-trucks, the first 500 will be exclusively for the UAE market; 2,000 will be Supervans, which has huge market potential.
There is lot of demand for e-trucks from Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Bahrain, Jordan and Africa, he noted.
Admiral also has plans to expand the product range to buses.
“In addition to our e-trucks we will launch a wide range of e-buses, vans and heavy e-trucks, also based on hydrogen, as well as charging and energy storage solutions,” said Bernthaler and added that Admiral will not produce hydrogen, but will help the producers with an entire grid solution and a network of infrastructure to charge the vehicles, stated the report.
The Admiral Mobility assembly plan is in three phases, the first being the distribution, announced now, and the second and third being localisation later on.
“Phase 1 is bringing in a product which is tested and developed for this market. In phase two and three, we will analyse localisation and when it makes economical and commercial sense we will go for local assembly,” said Brenthaler.
“If local assembling is happening, it will definitely be with Geely as they have the technology that others don’t have”, Bernthaler said, he also added, “When I go beyond Geely with other manufacturers, we have a large range of buses based on electric technology and also hydrogen.
The commitment to bringing 500 commercial vehicles to the UAE in 2023, will further help build the ‘green transportation industry’, especially in the lead up to climate change conference, COP28 next year, concludes the report.
By Sumita Pawar