Angry-Looking Quds Rise EV Prototype Goes for a Test Drive and It’s a Spectacle

Meet Quds Rise, an EV that will go into production later this year and then on to deliveries in 2022. It’s a sports car, and it’s mighty angry-looking, but it’s very friendly to the environment and, from what the makers claim, the owner’s wallet. Quds Rise, this seeming amalgam of design elements and unlikely sources of inspiration, whose name is derived from the Arabic name for Jerusalem (al-Quds), is coming.

Quds Rise is the first model from EV Electra, which proudly describes itself on the official website as the first EV maker in Lebanon and the Arab World. Though still at the beginning of the road, EV Electra plans to deliver several models, with the Quds Rise being only the first. It also eyes a 10,000-unit production for the first year, and based on the latest videos released, it bets hard on the fact that the EV is Lebanon’s first homegrown electric car.

EV Electra was founded by Jihad Mohammed, a businessman born in Lebanon. He is the gentleman in the driver’s seat of the Quds Rise prototype sent out on its first test drive earlier this week. That would be the same gentleman flipping the bird at someone right before the drive, which, as you can see for yourself, turned into a genuine spectacle. It involved blocked traffic, passers-by gawking, and a red-carpet event with massive security detailing, all set to the tune of Europe’s “Final Countdown.” Nothing like stepping into the future on an ‘80s soundtrack.

EV Electra says it has offices “in Canada, Cyprus, Germany, Italy, and Norway [and] a global presence vision,” meaning expansion plans after the first national deliveries. If they do exist, these plans were never publicly detailed in the four years the company has been on the market.

The prototype shown to the media and the public in Beirut, in the first video below, sticks close to the design in the renderings. Still, it comes across as angrier and somehow more confused-looking than the pixel version.

Still, once it reaches customers, this electric sports car should deliver the goods. Powered by one rear electric motor developing 160 hp and a 50 kWh lithium-ion battery pack, Quds Rise is good for 450 km (280 miles) on a single charge, at least on paper. Weighing 1,100 kg (2,425 pounds), the EV goes from 0 to 100 kph (62 mph) in 5 seconds, but maxes out at 165 kph (102.5 mph).

The two-seater has an aluminum body with fiberglass panels and rides on 18-inch wheels. The interior is relatively basic, but renders show a 15.9-inch touchscreen display. Offered in seven colors and six interior colors (so you can matchy-match, of course), each Quds Rise features a fake grill cover that is a tribute to the Dome of the Rock Islamic monument in the Old City. On the prototype, it’s painted solid gold, though the renders had it black, with the Phoenix-like logo of the maker on it.

Quds Rise, the country’s first electric sports car, is priced affordably, too: the starting price is $30,000. Then again, affordability is relative to the market. For Lebanon, it would be a premium car: the average yearly salary in the country is $38,000, but the most typical yearly salary is approximately half that, at $17,000.

All told, this is one of two things, depending on your perspective: it’s a first step in the right direction and it’s better than nothing, or it’s a joke. Whichever it is, EV Electra would best invest in some proper camera equipment because you tend to lose credit when speaking of a technology “revolution” with 360p videos.