A Lebanon-made electric car made its debut, the first time the Mediterranean country has manufactured an automobile, despite struggling amid a dire economic crisis with frequent power cuts. A particular businessman of Palestinian descent is still willing despite the struggle that the country faces to invest and manufacture the country’s not just electric car but also the first sports car.
The businessman who is a 50 -year -old Jihad Mohammad that owns EV Electra company, displayed the sports car for the first time in the country on Saturday in a parking lot south of Beirut. The vehicle was named Quds Rise of which Quds in Arabic also referred to the Jerusalem which thus means the rise of Jerusalem in Malay and is the brainchild of the businessman.
The front of the sports car is decorated with the golden logo of the Dome of Rock building or stone dome or Qubbat As-Sakhrah which is the shrine in Jerusalem’s al-Aqsa mosque compound, Islam’s third holiest site. It was built during the Umayyad dynasty between 691 and 715 located in the courtyard of the al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. In addition, the sports car was built in Lebanon ‘from start to finish’.
The particular car is to cost $30,000 (RM122,925). Production of up to 10,000 vehicles is hoped to start later this year in Lebanon, with cars to hit the market in a year’s time, said Mohammad, the director of Lebanon-based firm EV Electra. Mohammad, 50, said he set up the company four years ago after years abroad, employing Lebanese and Palestinian engineers among 300 members of staff.
It was reported that the price of his car was the cheapest in the world and only a small number of people could dream of driving an electric vehicle at that price. The company’s Research and Development Center in Beirut is reportedly building its engines and batteries. The car is expected to enter the European market later this year.
Sources: AlJazeera, YouTube The National.