UAE's first e-bike to hit roads in less than 6 months, says Emirati developer

The first ever electric bike to be conceived, and manufactured in the UAE, will hit the roads in less than six months, according to the brand’s Emirati founder Rashid Al Salmi.

“We are already in talks with delivery and logistic companies to provide them with prototypes so that they can start testing the products,” he said. “Within six months, the bikes will be on the road to be used for deliveries.”

It was last week that Rashid’s company Sulmi launched the EB-ONE. It is the first market-ready product to emerge from the SoiLAB facility of Sharjah Research, Technology, and Innovation Park (SRTIP) – the region’s largest state-of-the-art makerspace.

Built with sleek looks, the bike has a top speed of 150km/h and can cover 300km on a single charge. It also incorporates intelligent technologies for rider safety. A camera placed on the side of the bike scans 360 degrees on the road. A screen in the front of the bike will reflect the rider’s mobile phone, ensuring road safety and solving the issue of phones overheating.

According to Rashid, right from the power unit to the parts of the motorcycle, were completely manufactured in the UAE. “A lot of companies import parts, assemble it, and call it a UAE product,” he said. “But I wanted Sulmi to be a technology creator. A proud representative of what the UAE can achieve.”

A tale of sacrifices

A career in football, a well-paying job, and his entire life savings – these are just some of the things that mechanical engineer Rashid has put on the line for his dream of producing a completely UAE made automobile.

“I have made a lot of sacrifices,” he said. “I began putting together the team of Sulmi in 2018. It was a task finding the right engineers and designers needed for my project but I knew that I wanted to achieve something big and I needed the right kind of team for it.”

The hardest part of his journey came in the aftermath of the Covid 19 pandemic. “There were issues in the supply chain,” he said. “Spare parts were hard to find and we were struggling. I was burning money and nothing was coming out of it.”

The sudden increase in deliveries during the lockdowns got Rashid thinking and he decided to pivot. “I thought that if we could get delivery companies on board, we could have a winning formula at hand,” he said. “Not only could we cut down on carbon emissions, but we could also improve the safety of riders with cutting-edge technology. So we used the technology that we were going to put in cars and put it into the EB-ONE.”

Challenges

Rashid said that one of his biggest challenges was understanding what consumers wanted. “We did surveys for over a year,” he said. “We asked what kind of bikes they preferred on the UAE roads. There were a lot of factors to take into consideration – the heat, the speed on the roads, the durability, and the cost.”

Once they came up with a prototype, the task was to build the bike. “We had the design ready by the end of 2021,” he said. “We spent more than a year and a half just building it, testing it, and perfecting it.”

Rashid credits his year in the UAE army for national service for teaching him patience and perseverance. “It is what gave me the confidence to quit my job and go for my goals,” he said. He is also grateful for his family’s support and the resources extended by SRTIP. “The team at SRTIP and Sheikha Bodour Al Qassimi completely believed in my vision and I am truly indebted to them for it.”

Rashid with Sheikh Bodour Al Qassimi at the launch of EB-ONE last week

The future holds exciting possibilities for Sulmi. “We can build one bike a day,” he said. “We are working with a partner company that will buy the bikes from us and then rent them out to the delivery companies. I am immensely proud that we were able to launch the bike the same year of COP28.”

According to Rashid, there are other projects under wraps for Sulmi. “We have something for the consumer as well,” he said. “People will just have to wait for it.”

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