African Startup Plans Hybrid Car Line

KAMPALA, Uganda—Each prototype car that rolls off Kiira Motors Corp.’s assembly line moves Chief Executive Paul Isaac Musasizi closer to his dream of building Africa’s first homegrown family of electric vehicles.

 
The electrical engineer says his factory on the outskirts of Uganda’s capital annually could build 7,000 of its EV Smack sedan and a 37-passenger van by 2018. “We are on course,” Mr. Musasizi, 36 years old, says as he surveys a prototype of a navy blue coupe in the factory yard. “We have already sidestepped many hurdles.”
 
Yet a lot of roadblocks remain, including shortages of reliable power, roads, and production financing. Mr. Musasizi’s project will test whether up-and-coming African companies can overcome the hardships that have dogged manufacturing on the continent for so long.
 
“The automotive industry presents one of the fiercest competitive market environments,” says Mr. Musasizi, who was inspired to design an electric car after a visit to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology a decade ago. “We need to remain focused, courageous and committed.”
 
Mr. Musasizi, a former Makerere University engineering lecturer, named Kiira after the Nile River dam that provides electricity to his factory and thousands of Ugandan consumers. He hopes his next car’s price tag, less than $20,000, will lure customers away from pricier imports brought overland from ports in Kenya and Tanzania.
 
Source http://www.wsj.com/

Posted on : 16 May,2024 | News Source : ABNews

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