The Federal Government has selected 12 universities – two from each geopolitical political zone of the country – to manufacture electric vehicles.
The initiative, which is a part of the “Nigeria First” policy of the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu administration, will be financed by the Bank of Industry (BoI) and other key financial institutions.
The Director-General of the National Automotive Design and Development Council (NADDC), Mr. Oluwemimo Osanipin, announced this in Uyo, the Akwa Ibom State capital, at a stakeholders’ engagement with the Association of Motor Dealers of Nigeria (AMDON) and the Nigeria Automotive Manufacturers Association (NAMA).
At the event, with the theme: Import of Used Cars and Dealership Regulation in Nigeria, Osanipin said Nigeria remained committed to manufacturing component parts of vehicles in preparation for Made in Nigeria vehicles and in fulfilment of the Nigeria First policy.
He said: “When I came in, one of the major initiatives I pushed for was component development. But let me state here that no country, no company, no Open Education Consortium (OEC) manufactures its vehicles totally.
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“For example, the company that manufactures Mercedes has people that produce the engine for them, but they have the design, the interior. They still have other people who produce the bulb, and the braking system, among others. In all this, no OEM manufactures all the components. But again, we are conscious of what happens after sales.
“Apart from producing the parts to service vehicle production, you produce more parts to service after sales.”
This is because let’s say annual production is 500,000 but the vehicles you service on the road are about 18 million. What that means is that we need to produce more parts.
“That’s why we are pushing for components and parts production. As of today, we are expanding. We have identified the components that we can do with comparative advantage and with lower cost, like plastic parts. This is because some of those parts will come from bye-products of petroleum products.
“So, there are lots of things that we can produce here in Nigeria. We are working with major assemblers. In terms of the design you are talking about, we have started an initiative where we gather 12 universities – two from each geopolitical zone. They are designing what we call university shuttle buses that are going to be 100 per cent electric.
“They are going to be designed in Nigeria. Most of the cars will be sourced locally. We are on it. When they finish, we will come together again to work with assemblers and vehicle manufacturers and get support from companies that can finance them, like the Bank of Industry (BoI) and other financial institutions, to be able to produce the vehicles.
“Gradually, we are going to have electric vehicles fully designed and manufactured in Nigeria. In preparation for that, we started building stations in certain universities. In the next few months, we will cover nothing less than 10 universities.
“By the time we have this, we will have built some infrastructure. Gradually, we are building for the future and building the parts.”
