Abu Dhabi to build electric vehicle facility in its KIZAD industrial zone

Mohamed Juma al-Shamisi, chief executive of state-owned Abu Dhabi Ports Company (ADPC), gestures during an interview with Reuters in Abu Dhabi, April 10, 2014. REUTERS/Stringer (United Arab Emirates – Tags: Business)

DUBAI, Sept 6 (Reuters) – Abu Dhabi will build an electric vehicle assembly plant to produce thousands of cars a year from its industrial estate and bring in smart electric company NWTN as it looks to become an automotive hub.

Khalifa Industrial Zone Abu Dhabi (KIZAD) will build a 25,000-square-meter facility, operated by NWTN, for electric vehicle manufacturing, research and development and vehicle testing, it said on Tuesday.

“Attracting EV manufacturers to Abu Dhabi will play an important role in realizing Abu Dhabi’s economic vision,” Mohamed Juma Al Shamisi, managing director and group CEO of AD Ports Group, which owns KIZAD, said in a statement.

Under the agreement, NWTN’s operations will initially have an annual capacity of 5,000 to 10,000 semi-disassembled electric vehicles, in which the manufacturer partially disassembles vehicles at origin and reassembles them in another country.

In the second phase, the company plans to launch several new electric vehicle models and expand production capacity to 50,000 vehicles per year.

NWTN said it “will benefit from proximity to AD Ports Group’s expansive automotive business ecosystem, which includes existing and upcoming projects tailored to the automotive industry.”

Luxury electric car maker Lucid (LCID.O) A factory is being built in Saudi Arabia with the ultimate goal of producing as many as 150,000 electric vehicles per year.

Reporting by Hadeel Al Sayegh; Editing by Jason Neely

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