A Canadian manufacturer with plans to directly compete with electric automotive firms such as Tesla Motors has announced that it is already starting large-scale production in China. Electra Meccanica revealed that the construction of its single-seat budget electric vehicle has already begun at a factory in the Asian country. The vehicle is expected to be priced way below any available electric car in the market; a strategy the company hopes would work in its favor in the mainly Tesla-dominated market.
The company's single-seat flagship, called the Solo EV, is a fully electric vehicle capable of traveling 100 miles on a single charge. Electra Meccanica mentioned that the vehicle can be fully charged through a regular home socket in less than 6 hours. The three-wheeled vehicle is expected to be priced at around US$15,000.
The Vancouver-based firm revealed that it had actually already begun delivering orders since May 2018. Most of the components were shipped from Zongshen Industrial Group; the company's manufacturing partner in China. Meanwhile, the assembly of the initial units was done in British Columbia, Canada. Electra Meccanica announced that to ramp up production, it has decided to have the assembly done on a dedicated facility in the province of Chongqing in China.
Production of 50 more Solo EVs unit will continue in Canada until the end of March. The company expects that it will be able to significantly increase its production to 5,000 cars by the end of the year when everything is transferred to China. The company's CEO, Jerry Kroll, made a statement to the media expressing his pride in their continued partnership with Zongshen, who apparently made it possible for them to have a state-of-the-art production facility in the country.
Aside from the Solo EV, the company also developed a two-seater electric sports car called the Tofino. Interest in the vehicle has exceeded the company's expectations, with Electra Meccanica announcing that it had over 64,000 pre-orders for the vehicle. The pre-orders represent around US$2.4 billion in potential sales for the company.
While also selling massive amounts of its electric vehicles in Canada, the company is rapidly expanding in the United States. Electra Meccanica currently owns several dealerships within the country, with the first one being a dealership it opened in Los Angeles last year. California's early adoption of electric vehicles has made it a lucrative destination for electric startups such as Electra Meccanica. The company is currently being traded in NASDAQ, with prices wildly swinging in both directions. Stock prices hit as low as US$0.90 and as much as US$8.25 in the few months since it had gone public. Prices have since been climbing following the company's China factory announcement.
