Electric cars developed in the country may be ready to undergo road test at the end of this year, Technology and Higher Education Minister Mohamad Nasir said this week.
“The tests will be done at the end of 2017 or start of 2018,” Nasir said at the Presidential Palace Complex in Jakarta on Wednesday, Aug. 30, as reported by Kompas.com.
The development of domestically produced electric cars is a long-term dream of both the government and local industry in an effort to stem a reliance on imports, however the project had been on hiatus for several years before being revived last year.
While the locally made electric cars will soon be ready for testing, the minister said the project is still in need of investors, preferably local
“We don’t want foreign (investors) because we want to compete with other countries. In this matter, we need to be competitive,” he said.
The car-testing stage, Nasir added, will be immediately followed by the industry stage, which will see the electric cars be mass-produced. He hopes investors would come in before the beginning of the testing stage.
Recently, Vice President Jusuf Kalla said the government would welcome and support any companies interested in investing in the electric car project by offering incentives in the form of import duty cuts for spare parts required for manufacturing. The government will also prepare the infrastructure for the use of electric cars, particularly in the form of adequate electricity supply, Kalla said.
Previously, Industry Minister Airlangga Hartarto said Indonesia aims to produce 2 million cars by 2025, 20 percent of which would be electric vehicles