Credit crunch may delay Joule production plans
It seems that the global financial crisis will delay the mass production of the Optimal Energy Joule, on which GreenCars recently reported. The company is in need of some €100m (some R1.3bn) in investment to start the building of an assembly plant.
Optimal Energy CEO Kobus Meiring told Reuters: “It is unfortunate that at the same time we launched this car in Paris, the bottom fell out of the (automobile) market and it does make things more difficult. In a sense the market is good and bad. Its bad because a lot of the discretionary part of funds have disappeared and funds have to regroup, but its good … if you are looking for a real-value proposition. From that point of view we will attract investors.”
So far, Optimal Energy has received R50m from the South African government and R30m from the Industrial Development Corporation to aid the development of the Joule. Now, a feasibility study to determine the location of the proposed factory is underway, but will obviously be delayed by a shortage of funding.
On the production volume front, Meiring said: “Anything less than 20,000 a year is difficult to do in an economically viable way… Whatever that volume number is, we want to be in full-volume production by 2015.” Optimal Energy plans to sell at least 80% of its output overseas. Pricing is still planned to be around R200 000 locally and around €25 000 in Europe.
Source: Reuters
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