A Lebanon-made electric car made its debut, the first time the Mediterranean country has manufactured an automobile, despite struggling amid a dire economic crisis with frequent power cuts. The red sports car - named "Quds Rise", using the Arabic name of Jerusalem - is the project of Lebanese-born Palestinian businessman Jihad Mohammad. It's the "first automobile to be made locally," Mohammad told reporters, at the unveiling in a parking lot south of Beirut.
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Lebanese-born Palestinian businessman Jihad Mohammad arrives in the "Quds Rise", the first-ever electric car produced in Lebanon, during an unveiling ceremony in Khaldeh, south of the capital Beirut.
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It was built in Lebanon "from start to finish", he said of the prototype, emblazoned at the front with a golden logo of the Dome of the Rock, the shrine in Jerusalem's al-Aqsa mosque compound Islam's third holiest site. Above, a model leans on the "Quds Rise", the first-ever electric car produced in Lebanon.
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The car is to cost $30,000. Production of up to 10,000 vehicles is hoped to start later this year in Lebanon, with cars to hit the market in a year's time, said Mohammad, the director of Lebanon-based firm EV Electra.
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Palestinian members of the Al-Quds association flash the victory sign as they pose by the "Quds Rise", the first ever electric car produced in Lebanon.
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Mohammad, 50, said he set up the company four years ago after years abroad, employing Lebanese and Palestinian engineers among 300 members of staff. He says his long-term goal is to compete on the international market for hybrid and electric cars, as well as to make sales in Lebanon.
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But the unveiling comes as Lebanon struggles amid its worst economic crisis in decades, and imported car sales are at a record low, in part due to capital controls and drastic devaluation on the black market.
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Dealers sold just 62 new cars in the first two months of 2021, almost 97 percent less than the same period a year before, figures released by the Association of Automobile Importers in Lebanon showed.
The economic crunch since late 2019 has plunged more than half the population into poverty.
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