Rossen Daskalov: We will Make an Assembly Line for up to 20,000 Cars a Year in Bulgaria

Novinite Insider » INTERVIEW | April 4, 2019, Thursday // 15:26
Bulgaria: Rossen Daskalov: We will Make an Assembly Line for up to 20,000 Cars a Year in Bulgaria

The words "plant" and "car production", pronounced in one sentence pertaining to Bulgaria, always provoke skepticism (mildly spoken). That's why a reporter from Vesti.bg to the Sin Cars stand in Geneva to talk to Rossen Daskalov and figure out what his plans are, because this topic has been popular over the last month.

Tell me what are your plans, is the word "plant" involved, which is quite strong for Bulgaria?

"Yes, we are planning a rather small assembly line for the scale of automotive production, which is about 6,000 square meters. What you see here (see the stand) are pre-production prototypes. And of course, everyone asks me how much they will cost.

To be able to answer this question, I have to stand before each supplier and tell him: this month he will take 100 pieces of this, 100 pieces from another, etc. to make a planned production with planned deliveries. In this way, we will be able to make so-called "OE" prices, in other words Original Equipment for initial build-in of major manufacturers.

On March 4th we had talks with a large French company to use their prices and parts they produce. We have other conversations, but the main thing is to make sure that we can assemble the puzzle piece in parts. But that's why we have to stand in front of suppliers with specific numbers to lower the price. How can we list these items? Well, of course, we need to have orders and produce them. Going back, how can we make these pieces? Well, we need to have the assembly line in question, because that can not happen with the terms we have at the moment. We do our sports racing cars manually, and I want a lot more than that.

That is why we are pushing to make the production line, to make an IPO in Bulgaria. We believe that Bulgaria is the place for our success and our business, because we are the only ones, we love the Bulgarian, with our cars we represent Bulgaria all over the world (already on three continents). "

Here is the note that L City is a multifunctional platform over which different options will be built. The first option will be the production of transport models with a maximum of 2 seats in L6-E and L7-E, which allow for easy homologation and traffic registration in Europe. Something more in that direction?

"The car, as a platform, is unique in several criteria. First, we narrow down the framework of use in the narrow city area, not only for Bulgaria. The car is intended to be sold in major European cities, in green areas. After a few years in these areas and cities, diesel will be totally banned, except for Euro 6. This means that someone has to replace the current supply of cars in these areas, and these are basically the MPV vehicles, powered mainly by diesel engines.

From there, narrowing the application area to a limited extent, more than 200 km can hardly be found in this environment. We have an option for a maximum mileage of 300 km - 30 kWh battery. With a small battery we can offer low cost. The battery, as you can see, is replaceable, it is a consumable. If the customer wants to change it more, we offer such a service and we can replace it with a larger one.

From then on, in the urban environment, the maximum speed is 50-60 km / h, less often up to 80 km / h. Such a speed would mean that we are scrambling a lot of security-related criteria with additional car functions, and so on. This way we also lower the price and make it competitive with other brands.

The third thing, which is very important, is our platform, which for the moment is unique in the world. We have not "invented the wheel". We just took a platform from the big buses and dragged it to the scale for our needs. It is based on our experience in motor sport, suspension, systems, etc., everything comes from there. The electric motor is German, the controller is from Curtis, which is No. 1 in the world. We assemble the battery with components coming from the leading brands in this area. There are some plastic parts that will be made to us in Switzerland. The chassis will produce it with some robots. We found a seat contractor in Samokov.

The car is ready, there is not much that complicated in it. "

It sounds to me like flowers, roses, party ... Do you see a timeframe in which all this has to happen?

"Yes, we have to begin with the construction of the factory at the latest early spring next year. It will be in Rousse, where I am. Naturally, we will have representation in Sofia.

Very interesting is the partnership with our close companies. Such, for example, is our cooperation with Sopharma, which offered us to buy a certain number of cars, as well as other companies, which are transporting in the city. They will drive them a year in Bulgaria so we can get extremely valuable feedback from them. "

Speaking of a production line, should I ask you what volumes are involved?

"So we have predicted the line that we will have a profit of about half a million Euro with a few hundred cars, with a capacity of 20,000 cars per year if three shifts work, and the plant itself, with everything under construction, etc. pre-order for a few hundred cars, "will cost us under 10 million, and that's a very competitive price."

Where does the funding come from?

"As I said, our goal is to work towards IPO. At the moment, we have an Austrian company with representation in Germany. There are 400 people working on car parts and wanting to be part of this venture. "

This material originally appeared on Vesti.bg on 15/03/2019

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