The Observers | de France 24

Elektra 1, the homemade electric car

Faraz Khan has something to be proud of. He drives around his home city of Karachi in one of Pakistan's few electric cars. And he built it with his own hands.

It's called the Elektra 1. From the outside it looks just like a Susuki Mehran, the region's most common car. Take a look under the bonnet however, and you'll see that Faraz has replaced the traditional petrol-run motor with one that runs entirely on electricity. On a "full tank", or 4-6 hours of charging, the car can run for 30km.

And up next, the Elektra 2, which is already under construction. This new model will be able to reach 110 km/h and travel for 160 km when fully charged. Faraz publishes step-by-step instructions to build both models on his blog, Elektra Automotive . For him, travelling on an electric battery brings both economic and environmental benefits. In 2006, pollution levels in Karachi were 20 times higher than the limit laid out by the World Health Organisation.

Contributors

Faraz Khan

“My new car costs nine times less to run”

Faraz Khan is an engineer from Karachi. He runs the blog Elektra Automotive.

I use this car every day. The price of petrol these days - 54 euro cents per litre - is unaffordable. So like many Pakistanis, driving to work in a petrol-fuelled vehicle became a luxury I couldn't afford. My new car costs nine times less to run.

It's also a very nice car to drive in a city like Karachi where you spend a lot of time in traffic. The Elektra 1 is not a fast car. To slow down, you only need to take your foot off the accelerator. Driving is very smooth. And the best thing, is that it doesn't use any fuel in topping.

As a trained engineer, it wasn't very difficult to assemble everything. Some of the parts are produced locally but the electric motor comes from the US. I think mine must be the first electric car in Pakistan. Nobody's really tried to put them into production. It's always the same story - petrol companies lobby not to lose their market. But for the automobile industry this could be a very advantageous project. These cars are easy to produce and it would create jobs in the country.

Another motivation was being sick of breathing in exhaust fumes. Taking in that most of the gas you breathe in when stuck in a traffic jam is that of your own car, I feel much better since I've switched to electric. Sadly however, most people in Pakistan aren't financially stable enough to be worrying about the environment."

Faraz Khan