This Suzuki FX Is The Second Locally Converted Electric Car Of Pakistan!

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Electric cars around the world are considered expensive to produce due to high cost of batteries and the electric motor. However, Pakistani engineers have been coming up with ideas to produce cheaper electric cars based on low cost locally assembled Kei Cars. Sadly, due to lack of government support, much of these ideas failed to make an impact as they ran out of resources and institutional support.

Also Read: Rickshaw As A Personal Vehicle: Guy From Lahore Breaks The Rickshaw Stereotypes

Back in 2009, our fellow PakWheels forum member, frk2@pakwheels introduced the first electric car of Pakistan. It was a Suzuki Mehran BEV (Battery Electric Vehicle) locally converted in Karachi. According to calculations made by Frk2, it would have been 8-9 times cheaper to operate than a conventional Mehran. frk2 built one unit of Suzuki Mehran BEV, but he had wider ambitions, one of them was to get it mass produced which was bogged down since our government does not support low volume auto manufacturers. And that brought an end to Frk2’s ambitious first-of-its-kind project.

Now, some engineers from Islamabad have come up with a Suzuki fx converted as an electric car. They have named their company, Jolta Technologies and have been working on to bring electric car projects. At the moment, this electric Suzuki FX has a 40km range and takes three hours to recharge. The car has installed with six dry-cell batteries that power a small rotary motor installed in the back of the Suzuki, making a rear-wheel drive car. Moreover, the team is working on two more models with greater mileage and speed.

Read about frk2@pakwheels’ electric vehicle project here!

To sum things up, our government should support small innovative auto manufacturers, legally, technically and economically to foster automotive research and development in Pakistan. Who knows one day we can have our successful automotive brand.

 

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4 Comments
  1. Guest says

    Pakistan has got a lot of raw talent and entrepreneurial spirit, but no structured mechanism to convert those things into profitable ventures and create customer value.

    Recently there have been some efforts like startup incubator and microfinance but those efforts all are from the private sector, while the government is busy wasting the money in blackhole charity ventures like BBS income support program.

  2. Shiraz Maqbool says

    I agree. The choice of car could’ve been better though – something with a roomier engine bay but then again, they can always add a few more batteries under the rear seats and the boot floor. Also, Lithium Ion would’ve been a better choice instead of the Dry Cell batteries – more power per size. Sure, it’s expensive to make but ultimately lasts longer and has better power to weight ratio. Ditto for the motor – a brushless DC Motor would’ve been more powerful in terms of torque per watt, although again it is a bit more complex than the one they used.

    Guess they went for simplicity and low costs instead of complexity and high cost. Understandable, as it was an FX 😛

  3. MAC says

    putting the heavy load of batteries at the front makes the car front heavy during braking and acceleration and then it was made rear wheel drive. Not an ideal layout for a battery powered car.

  4. Zubair Siddiqi says

    This model has some range issues and the layout, with the engine in the back, is probably down to the current design of the car and the room available to place the batteries and the motor. This is a brilliant starting point, theoretically, the Mehran has a little more engine room so they can work out the problems of the layout and new battery technology (especially from South Korea) will resolve the long charging time, battery size and range.

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