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Thursday, 17 June 2021

EV testing starts in July

Egypt will start testing China’s E70 EV cars next month ahead of launching an assembled-in-Egypt E70 in 2022: State-owned El Nasr Automotive has imported 13 E70 electric passenger cars from China and will begin testing them on Egyptian roads from the beginning of next month, the Public Enterprises Ministry said in a statement. The tests, most of which will be handled by Uber drivers, will last for three months and come as the government prepares to begin locally producing the vehicles through El Nasr next year.

El Nasr plans to locally assemble the first 100 EVs by July-August 2022, Public Enterprises Minister Hisham Tawfik said in a phone-in to Ala Mas’ouleety (watch, runtime: 2:30) last night. This comes as part of two agreements the state-owned company had signed in January with China’s Dongfeng to locally assemble EVs as well as to rehabilitate a mothballed El Nasr plant, which will have three production lines for the vehicles. Each car will cost between EGP 290k-400k, the minister said (watch, runtime: 1:27).

The first El Nasr-Dongfeng EV should be ready to hit the road by September 2022, Tawfik said. This is at least a quarter later than previously thought, with earlier local press reports quoting El Nasr managing director Hany El Kholy as saying the cars will be ready in 1Q2022.

Development of infrastructure + charging stations is already underway: The government wants to see 3k charging stations installed over the next three years, in addition to establishing electric vehicle parking and charging stations in shopping center garages and the Tahrir and Ramsis garages. Industry leader Infinity has set up 130 charging points across the country and will roll out 100s more in the coming years, and including Schneider Electric are also looking to get in on the action. Hassan Allam Holding have also joined forces with some EV charging stations providers to carry out infrastructure work for some charging stations across the country, the statement said, but did not name these companies nor specify the number or locations of the stations.

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