First EV made “from start to finish” in Lebanon unveiled

The first Lebanon-made electric vehicle was debuted on Saturday by Lebanese-born Palestinian businessman Jihad Mohammad, who unveiled the Quds Rise battery-powered sportscar in a parking lot south of the country’s capital of Beirut.

Jihad Mohammad, the founder of Jihad Mohammad Investments and the newly launched EV subsidiary EV Electra, unveiled to reporters the company’s Quds Rise electric sportscar, which is the first electric vehicle to have been entirely made in Lebanon, “from start to finish”.

Mohammad founded EV Electra four years ago and now employs Lebanese and Palestinian engineers among 300 members of staff.

The prototype Quds Rise will be followed by a production run of up to 10,000 vehicles that EV Electra is hoping to kick into production later this year and will reportedly cost $US30,000 ($AU38,500, converted).

Emblazoned with EV Electra’s logo atop the front grill of the Quds Rise, which itself is shaped in the form of the Dome of the Rock, the Islamic shrine located on the Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem and considered Islam’s third holiest site.

Boasting a range of 450-kilometres and a maximum speed of 165km/h, the Quds Rise accelerates from o to 100km/h in just five seconds.

Seating two and with a 15.9-inch touch screen and drive display, the Quds Rise weighs in at 1,100 kilograms and is powered by a 160-horsepower rear-wheel drive (RWD) motor and a 50kWh battery.

Also featuring regenerative braking and fiberglass body panels bolted onto a superlight aluminium chassis, the Quds Rise seems to mirror some of the misaligned design choices so popular on early-2000 Porsche models.

But as one of the first electric vehicles to come out of the region, and amidst one of the country’s worst economic crises in decades, the Quds Rise is a worthy entrance for EV Electra.

Following in the footsteps of much more established EV makers around the globe, EV Electra also announced plans to install around 100 recharging stations across Lebanon, which could potentially be fuelled by solar and wind generation, according to Mohammad.

So while, no doubt, EV enthusiasts may not think much of the Quds Rise on first glance – especially when compared to some of its more established peers – the steps being taken by Jihad Mohammad and EV Electra to not only build EVs but also encourage EV adoption in Lebanon is an important milestone.