The prototype of the first electric car designed and produced in Romania, in Cluj, is sold for 450,000 euros. The car has an autonomy of 300 kilometers and is a technological jewel with motors in the wheels, rear-view mirrors replaced by video cameras, doors with sensors.
“The truth” was at a test drive with “Tesla of Cluj”. PHOTO: Remus Florescu
The “Tesla of Cluj” was presented, the other day, at the “Nicolae Bălcescu” Land Forces Academy in Sibiu, as part of a scientific event dedicated to new technologies.
Florin Dehelean, one of the investors, stated for “Adevărul” that the car is being sold for 450,000 euros, and the money will be reinvested in the continuation of the project.
“We differentiate ourselves by the fact that we go directly to the customer. And we go to a customer who wants a customized car. The future of this machine is that we are trying through this machine to transpose a possible collaboration or attracting investors for an assembly or production line in Romania to create different machines or models to meet the needs of certain customers” explained Dehelean at the mentioned event.
He also stated that the car has an autonomy of 300 kilometers and can reach a speed of 140 km/hour. The prototype produced in Cluj is a luxury sports car, intended for customers who want a customized product, the investor also specified.
The technological “gem” from Cluj
The “Adevărul” reporter had the opportunity, last fall, when the car was approved by RAR, to take a tour with the electric car.
The biggest challenge for the prototype was the bumps on certain city streets, in the context of the car being very low, having a sports car design. However, we cannot say that we are dealing with a sports car with “nervous” acceleration. In tests, it reached 127 kilometers per hour, and the two motors in the wheels provide the equivalent of 200 horsepower.
The car, which does not yet have a name, went up the ramps on Calea Turzii without any problems, turning the eyes of many traffic participants. The car has a length of 4.9 meters and a width of 2.1 meters, being made of carbon fiber. It has excellent cornering stability.
There are no problems in terms of traffic safety either, the car being made on the Audi A 8 chassis reinforced with a “roll cage bar” system used in racing cars. The car has no less than five screens: the central tablet known from the Tesla model S – where the parameters of the car are monitored -, the tablet that provides the entertainment part, two monitors that transmit images from rear-view cameras and the dashboard screen in front of the driver.
RAR approved the car. He “closed his eyes” to the lack of the key
“It's a car built from scratch and we hit a lot of things, considering we're talking about an industry that's over 100 years old and needs to reinvent itself. In a way, we are also part of this reinvention process”claimed Voicu Oprean, the founder of the IT company Arobs and the main investor in the project, while he was behind the wheel of the car in the Iulius Mall area of Cluj-Napoca.
RAR approved the car the other day and issued test registration numbers. After about four years of work and an investment of half a million euros, Voicu Oprean, who registered the first Tesla in our country, fulfilled his dream of driving an electric car designed and produced in Cluj.
One of the biggest problems he faced at RAR was the lack of a key. “Eventually we convinced them because there are more and more keyless cars on the market. If the letter of the law was to be respected, a small key and a lock were probably needed there”Oprean said with a smile.
Voicu Oprean listed Arobs on the stock exchange
When will it be available for purchase?
On a car in the 90s, testing took several years, but now this period has been greatly reduced. “We are trying to speed up this process, especially since we have expertise in the automotive area”stated the CEO of Arobs.
Asked when such a car could be purchased, he advanced two options: “The one promoted by Elon Musk, which gives the shortest deadlines to motivate the team and a more realistic option, which in our case would be 1-2 years”.
Oprean claims that the plan is to produce a limited series of 5-10 cars, a phase for which an investment of around 5 million euros would be required. So far the investment has amounted to 500,000 euros. “We are trying to find those innovative European funding projects to which we can obtain funding and to which we can also contribute as a consortium of companies”says the CEO.
The project is developed by the start-up Newcar4future SRL, which collaborated with entities such as Arobs, the Technical University, Rombat, and the design was made by Szabo Peter, who designed the first car with a wooden body in Romania.
