Zapp EV Appoints AIH Group to Deliver New Manufacturing Reference Site following First Sales of i300 in Thailand

Zapp Electric Vehicles Group Limited
Zapp Electric Vehicles Group Limited

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The new low-cost manufacturing facility located in the Bangkok Free Trade Zone will be delivered by AIH Group, a manufacturing consulting firm with a global footprint working with leading automotive OEMs.

LONDON, Oct. 10, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Zapp Electric Vehicles Group Limited (Nasdaq: ZAPP) (“Zapp EV” or the “Company”), owner of “Zapp”, the British electric vehicle brand on a mission to revolutionise personal urban mobility, today announced it has entered into a turnkey engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) agreement with AIH Group to deliver its low-cost manufacturing reference site in the Bangkok Free Trade Zone, which is a 100 acre campus near Thailand’s capital city offering a total of 220,000 square meters in manufacturing capacity. The new reference site will showcase Zapp’s flexible manufacturing and Gen-2 sustainable assembly innovations, and completion is expected by early 2025. It will also serve as a template for Zapp to roll out an anticipated series of such proprietary sites around the world that can be operated by any number of contract manufacturers, each with an annualized production capacity of up to 20,000 units and located in regions where Zapp sees significant sales growth potential.

Swin Chatsuwan, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Zapp EV, said: “Zapp is poised to scale rapidly worldwide in the coming years. Now that Zapp has commenced sales of i300 in Thailand, opening the new low-cost manufacturing reference site in the Bangkok Free Trade Zone brings benefits for both domestic sales and exports. AIH Group adds a wealth of expertise from operating its own contract manufacturing facility and at other locations around the world with well-known automotive brands. Working with AIH Group on this project is the first of our many planned flexible facilities that can be operated by contract manufacturers and replicated in more locations worldwide and closer to the urban markets that the i300 was designed for.

“Being able to personalise your i300 is incredibly important and often means each one is built to order. Reducing the time spent in transit between assembly and the customer’s doorstep adds to the ‘Gen-2 sustainabilty’ credentials of the i300, and means that our planned drop-ship-direct-to-customer model will see customers on their bikes in a shorter timeframe.”

Corrie Kotze, Chief Executive Officer of AIH Group, added: “We have worked with many leading automotive OEMs, including BMW, Ford, Land Rover and Mercedes-Benz, and we’ve been impressed by the Zapp team and the quality of i300’s design. With the added expertise that we bring, we look forward to supporting Zapp and accelerating its business plan in an effort to over-deliver on both its near- and long-term goals.”