By Ahmed Amer
The government launched a new plan to manufacture a new three-wheeled car in the next few months, costing be between EGP 20,000 and EGP30,000.
Further, the necessary amendments will be applied to the traffic law for the car’s licenses.
Head of the National Industrial Sector affiliated to the IDA, Alaa Salah El-Din told Daily News Egypt that the idea for the car was proposed by a brigadier general in the Arab Academy for Science, Technology and Maritime Transport, as part of the initiative suggested by President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi to resolve the unemployment crisis. The brigadier general designed the structure and the body of the car as well as the initial specifications.
A government official told Daily News Egypt that the Ministry of Military Production sponsors the production, while the Arab Organization for Industrialization (AOI) is responsible for preparing 50 models as a trial phase, until the cars’ specifications are applied. The car will be manufactured in one of the AOI’s factories.
After a meeting between the Transportation Division in the Federation of Egyptian Industries (FEI), the Industrial Development Authority (IDA) and the General Traffic Administration, the source added that Egyptian Organization for Standardization and Quality has placed standard specifications for three-wheeled cars. The meeting came to investigate the suitable and standard specifications for the three-wheeled car, which differs from the specifications of any other three-wheeled vehicles, such as the tuk-tuk and the tricycle.
The sources also said that the officials who attended this meeting approved these specifications and its license. However, the General Traffic Authority stated that the current traffic law places the three-wheeled car in the same category as tuk-tuks and tricycles. As such, this will present an obstacle for its license to be issued. It further requested that the IDA consider it in the same category as the tuk-tuk.
In order to pass this obstacle, a source said that the General Traffic Administration added a new description for this kind of car, which is the “light three-wheeled car”, differentiating it from a “light three-wheeled vehicle” category, which includes the tuk-tuk and the tricycle.
Salah El-Din said that this vehicle is described as a car because it is safer than the tuk-tuk, adding that its cost will be the same as the tuk-tuk. He further expected that it will replace the tuk-tuk soon.
