An Australian electric vehicle maker has signed a contract to begin producing four EVs from a new Adelaide base.
The Australian Clean Energy Electric Vehicle Group (ACE-EV) has made a deal with Adelaide’s Aldom Motor Body Builders. ACE-EV now aims to produce more than 15,000 vehicles by 2025 from the South Australian facility.
The deal will help the innovative EV car manufacturer establish an assembly line for its flagship Cargo van. From there, ACE-EV plans on large-scale export to meet the global right-hand drive market.
Australia not keeping up with rest of world: ACE-EV
The initial focus for ACE-EV is light commercial city transport. Managing director Greg McGarvie says the EV manufacturer already has orders for around 100 Cargo delivery vans. The electric vehicle maker will have four models in total, the Cargo, Yewt, Urban and the Sportz
However, McGarvie told Energy Matters last month that the Federal Government is the biggest obstacle to EV uptake in Australia. The re-elected Coalition went to the May 18 federal election without a concrete EV strategy.
He says huge markets like China are 100 per cent behind EVs. A staggering 680,000 EVs were sold there in 2018, while Australian sales were less than 2,000.
Electric vehicle maker: Still a way to go to full manufacture
According to ACE-EV, a few things still need to happen before the company reaches production capacity.
Full manufacture will require around $130 million, McGarvie says. The Aldom deal will therefore help the company kick off first phase of the assembly line.
ACE-EV will initially import carbon-fibre body parts from Taiwan and Germany for assembly here. Ultimately, the EV manufacturer hopes to move from 25 per cent Australian-made content to 50 per cent.
The EV maker also plans to establish a global right-hand drive market from its Australian base. It will start production using 3,000 square metres of Aldom’s 121,000 square metre factory.
Why ACE-EV electric vehicles will take off in Australia
Greg McGarvie is convinced Australians will soon be driving ACE-EV models because of their advantages:
- They charge overnight and future models will be fast-charging.
- 30 kW battery models have 200-250 km range, 40 kW models have 260-330 km.
- Optional Graphene Interface Technology gives extra 40 per cent range.
- The average running cost is $9 per 250 km.
- Starting price is $40,000 before government charges.
- No smell, no noise.
- The only additive is water for the wipers.
Meanwhile, households with solar panels can also add a home battery like the Tesla Powerwall 2 or Enphase to charge their car overnight.
