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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.
As the first step, Admiral Mobility and Geely Farizon New Energy Commercial Vehicle Group entered into a strategic partnership for the rollout of electric commercial vehicles across the Middle East, said Frank Bernthaler, Chief Operating Officer, Admiral Mobility.
He said 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.
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.
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,” he said.
The trucks can be imported as cabin and chassis without the box, which is heavier, because customers have different requirements. Admiral can make the boxes locally according to the requirements of the customers.
“For electric cars, we are talking to one of the 300 car manufacturers in China. They have very good products with amazing technology.
“If local assembling is happening, it will definitely be with Geely as they have the technology that others don’t have.
“When I go beyond Geely with other manufacturers, we have a large range of buses based on electric technology and also hydrogen,” Bernthaler said.
The commitment in 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.
Admiral Mobility’s focus will be to offer sustainable mobility solutions to distribution businesses via the use of EV trucks, thus providing an environmentally-friendly and commercially viable business model, the Admiral Mobility COO said.
(Writing by Bhaskar Raj; Editing by Anoop Menon)
(anoop.menon@lseg.com)
