Liberty Electric Cars wins £24m order

The Liberty E-Range models will be delivered across Scandinavia, Iceland and the Faroe Islands over the next four years. The order, one of Liberty’s largest, has a value of around £24m.

The order is good news for workers at Liberty’s manufacturing base in Cramlington, Northumberland. The company takes standard Range Rovers and fits them with its own electric drive technology - Barry Shrier, Liberty Electric Cars CEO, claims the technology is "superior to Tesla".  The Liberty E-Range has a huge 75kWh battery pack (compared to the Tesla’s 53kWh and the 24kWh stack in the Nissan Leaf), which Liberty claims gives the car a range of 200 miles. There are electric motors in each wheel, which can take the 2.8-tonne off-roader to 60mph in seven seconds and on to 100mph. Shrier also claims the E-Range has superior off-road performance to a standard Range Rover

The Liberty E-Range is ideally suited to NLE’s markets where there is a large proportion of gravel roads and an advanced electricity supply grid using a vast amount of renewable energy. There are also relatively short distances between many of the major centres of population.

Zero import duty on electric vehicles

Ian Hobday, Managing Director of Liberty Electric Cars, says: “The Scandinavian countries are the ideal market for Liberty Electric Cars as the general policy on import duty is for this to be zero on electric vehicles, which puts the price of the Liberty E Range at the same level as an ordinary petrol or diesel luxury 4x4. The agreement with Northern Lights Energy is excellent news and indicates the enormous potential for us in these countries."

Gisli Gislason CEO of NLE, says: “The relative low cost of electricity coupled with the increasing cost of gasoline and the desire to reduce the dependency on foreign oil make electric vehicles a perfect fit for these territories. Liberty Electric Cars' 100 per cent pure electric innovative vehicle technology makes it an ideal partner to work towards our underlying goal of radically improving the transportation industry across Scandinavia and Iceland.”

Full solution to EV buyers

NLE’s business concept is innovative and unique as they offer a full solution to EV buyers. In addition to the car, NLE supplies the customer with a charging point for his or her home, the electricity needed to run the car as well as servicing and maintenance, all at a fixed monthly cost.

Modec electric vans

There is no news yet on whether Liberty will make an offer to rescue Modec, makers of the ‘world’s first electric vans’, which went into administration earlier this month with debts of £40m.