ACE EV to build electric vehicles in Australia

The Australian startup ACE EV (Australian Clean Energy Electric Vehicle Group) is building a production facility in Adelaide to manufacture electric vehicles in cooperation with truck body makers Aldom Motor from 2020. The aim is to increase production to up to 15,000 vehicles per year by 2025.

The first models are the ACE Cargo electric van and an electric small car called ACE Urban. An electric pickup called the ACE Yewt is also planned. The vehicle’s name here can be explained by a particular Australianism: What the Americans call a pickup, the Australians call a “ute” short for “utility vehicle” and in this case, changed to the phonetic spelling, Yewt. The Australian startup’s first electric car was built in a warehouse near Brisbane, Australia by a team that included a German engineer, a translator and a handful of workers.

The Adelaide-based company is already taking reservations for the new vehicles. According to ACE EV, up to half of the parts required for production are manufactured in South Australia and the rest are mainly imported from China. The Australians expect an export rate of 80 per cent for later sales.

Greg McGarvie, the company’s managing director said that the company would be signing an agreement with Aldom today, explaining “They are going to be assembling and building the very first light commercial electric vehicles in Australia.”

Performance data for two of the three above-mentioned electric vehicles are already public: the ACE Cargo is a van (panel van to Australians) and the ACE Yewt is a pickup truck (ute) with a payload of 500 kg each. The other technical data are also identical: both models have a control output of 18 kW, a peak output of 45 kW and a torque of 174 Nm. ACE EV specifies the top speed as 100 km/h. From 0 to 50 km/h, the electric motors take just under seven seconds. A battery with 23.2 kWh on board should enable a range of 150 to 200 km.

ace-ev.com, abc.net.au, theleadsouthaustralia.com, thedriven.io