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Electric cars attract young Emiratis

ABU DHABI — The centre of the attraction at the World Future Energy Summit exhibition has been the new smart electric-powered cars, mainly among young Emiratis.

Portugal’s Centre for Excellence and Innovation in Automobile Industry (CELLA) has brought an entire solution for electric mobility with a mini car manufactured by a partner company and electric charging station network system that are already operational in the European country.

“We are creating a central grid for the supply of power for car charging network and working with electric-powered car manufacturers. It is becoming a success story in Portugal where we already have 350 charging stations and by mid or before the end of the year the number will increase to 1,350 with thousands of clean cars hitting the roads,” Manuel Oliveira, Workshop Manager of the company.

He also said they are negotiating with local and other organisations to bring the entire solution to UAE and “hopefully there will be some inroads”. Masdar, Abu Dhabi National Oil Companies (ADNOC), Daimler, Siemens and other multi-national companies have also put on display their clean mobility solutions.

Siemens has introduced a smart electric-powered motorbike, while Daimler AG has the largest fleet of its newly developed and manufactured clean cars at the exhibition. The German company is introducing its Ride and Drive in Battery-electric powered vehicles.

Daimler has put on display its Mercedes Benz F800 Style vehicle showing the future premium automobiles form a new perspective.

Another model of theirs is Vito E-Cell inner city van, which runs on electricity and is free of sound pollution as it runs completely silently. The company has already commenced production of 100 of these cars this year.

nisar@khaleejtimes.com