Kalashnikov makes electric car
● Kalashnikov, maker of the AK-47 assault rifle, is the latest entry into the crowded electric-vehicle race that has drawn a range of tech entrepreneurs, makers of vacuum cleaners and the world’s biggest car companies.
Kalashnikov’s new vehicle, dubbed the CV-1, comes with a retro design that echoes the Soviet Union’s Izh-Kombi, a car popular in the 1970s. Kalashnikov showed off the car, with a broad front grille and a 350km driving range, at an arms fair in Moscow this week.
The CV-1 will help Kalashnikov enter the ranks of electric-car producers such as Tesla. Kalashnikov has been trying to expand its brand, adding shops to sell its clothing line and other civilian accessories.
With electric cars proliferating, albeit still from a low base, new competitors are vying to enter a sector dominated by long-standing manufacturers such as Volkswagen and General Motors. Many produce a prototype but struggle to overcome funding constraints and managing a highly complex supply chain and production process to profitably make cars.
Among the more advanced new hopefuls is China’s NIO, filing for a potential $1.8bn listing on the New York Stock Exchange. Others, such as Sony, have hinted at getting into “moving objects”, and Dyson, the vacuum cleaner maker, unveiled plans nearly a year ago to build an electric car by 2020.
Kalashnikov did not provide details about production or sales plans for its vehicle. Bloomberg
The arms maker has been trying to expand its brand, adding shops to sell its clothing line and other civilian accessories