Nexport, the company that plans to connect drivers directly with Chinese EV maker BYD to sell its range of electric vehicles “direct to the consumer”, has won its first major EV order to be made available to Uber drivers .
The order for 3,000 electric vehicles comes largely from the vehicle subscription company Splend – and is the largest order for electric vehicles of its kind in Australia to date, which has lagged behind the international acceptance of electric vehicles and has barely more than 20,000 electric vehicles in the country.
Through Nexport’s Memorandum of Understanding with Splend, stating that it is the UK and Australia’s largest provider of rental vehicles to drive the giant Uber, the BYD electric car fleet will significantly increase the number of electric vehicles on Australian roads.
Nexport says the fleet will be delivered from early 2022 but did not provide a timeframe for the fleet to be completed.
It was also not specified which BYD electric models will be supplied under the contract. Nexport is known to have plans to make up to five models available for import, including a $ 35,000 hatch known as EA1 (a more advanced version of the previously reported e2, according to Luke Todd, CEO of Nexport).
It is said that employees who attended Sydney’s Smart Energy Expo last week showed a video of the EA1 next to the premium BYD Han, a vehicle of which is already in Australia for evaluation purposes.
Nexport also has a small fleet of BYD right-hand drive electric taxis on the road in Sydney that were fitted with a special isolation capsule system in addition to a “Zero Contact, Zero Emissions” campaign and during the height of the Covid lockdown in the US were started port city.
Bridie Schmidt is the main reporter for The Driven, the sister site of Renew Economy. She specializes in writing about new technologies and has been writing about electric vehicles since 2018. She is very interested in the role that zero-emission transport must play in sustainability. She has participated in podcasts such as Download This Show with Marc Fennell and Shirtloads of Science with Karl Kruszelnicki and is co-organizer of the Northern Rivers Electric Vehicle Forum.
