Made-in-Nigeria automobile in the works?

From American specs to German machine, European, Japanese and Korean automobiles, and now India, one question that continues to agitate the minds of Nigerians remains – When will a locally manufactured vehicle be on display for auto shows in Nigeria?

In the early 1960s, private companies like UAC, Leventis, SCOA, RT Briscoe, and BEWAC, pioneered the establishment of auto assembly plants using Completely Knocked Down (CKDs) or Semi-Knocked Down parts in the country.

As efforts to manufacture a Nigerian automobile begun before the advent of Volkswagen of Nigeria and Peugeot Automobile Nigeria (PAN) in Lagos and Kaduna, respectively, the government adopted Peugeot 504 and other locally-assembled models as official cars.

Sadly, this initiative was not sustained, despite government’s involvement in the industry between 1970 and 1980, after sealing agreements with car plants in Europe to set up vehicle assembly plants using CKD parts in the wake of the growing middle-class.

In a bid to actualise the dream of having a 100 percent manufactured automobile in Nigeria, a team of Nigerian engineers made up of students and their professors from University of Lagos (UNILAG), University of Benin (UNIBEN), and Ahmadu Bello University (ABU) Zaria, have promised to design, build and test ultra energy-efficient and environment-friendly vehicles.

The quest is under the auspices of Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC), on behalf of Shell Companies in Nigeria (SEPCiN). In what would be a debut entry for sub-Saharan Africa at the Shell Eco-Marathon, three student teams from three Nigerian universities have begun preparation to compete at the 2014 event in Qatar.

Representatives from each team accompanied by their team managers were at the Shell Eco-Marathon in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, recently on a learning visit to acquire knowledge from participating entrants at the event.

Shell Eco-Marathon challenges student teams from around the world to design, build and test ultra energy-efficient vehicles. With yearly events first in the Americas, then Europe and Asia, the winners are the teams that go the furthest using the least amount of energy. The events have sparked off debate about the future of mobility and inspire young engineers to push the boundaries of fuel efficiency.

A member of the Nigerian team of engineers, Mohammed Dauda said the Nigerian team will link up the Shell Eco-Marathon to the quest for competitive made-in-Nigeria car.

According to the university don from ABU, Zaria, “We can link it up because when we participate next year, remember this event is tailored at producing a highly energy efficient car, both prototype and sub-urban concept. All the parts that will be used in making this highly energy efficient car will be fed into our Nigeria car project. In essence, participating in Eco-Marathon will help us make a highly energy efficient and sophisticated car.

“What I agree with is that Nigeria will be able to make a highly energy efficient car. We might adapt some technologies rather than simply make all of it because it may increase the cost. What I am assuring you is that we will be able to make car in Nigeria. When you say 90 percent, it means all the 90 percent of the materials and inputs will be sourced locally. That I am not sure because we do not have the empirical evidence to show you as it is now.”

Akaehomenb Ibahadode, professor of Manufacturing Engineering at UNIBEN, noted that what the Nigerian team was looking at was not only in competing but coming out with a made-in-Nigeria car, which will form the basis of Nigeria made car.

“That is our focus. We are going there to participate, make our mark and beyond that we are hoping that this will be the pioneer effort in getting this dream called the Nigerian car. Judging from the work we have done previously and the one we have doing now concerning the World Bank sponsored project on the making of engine parts, developing local skills in making of engine parts, we are hoping that at the end of this process, we will be able to put together almost a 100 percent made in Nigeria car,” Ibahadode said.

For Ike Mowete, professor, Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, UNILAG, “A lot goes into building a made-in-Nigeria car. There are quite a few opportunities that are open to us if you look at it from various dimensions. Take the electrical system for example, how do you design a battery management system that will significantly reduce the way the car consume fuel or energy? How do you design a breaking system that contributes to the entire vehicles fuel efficiency, which has the aesthetics the wiper, the lighting systems, dash-boards?

“There are quite a few opportunities open to our students. More importantly let them now go from drawing board to hard ware. We will design and try to implement in hard ware and see that in doing so that each time we are conscious of the larger objective of building a fuel efficient car. Fortunately for now, we are not looking at the engine. In my own team, for example, we are focusing on the electric vehicle. There are quite a few opportunities for that. I can see now on paper that when we now get going we begin to see many things that will be open.”

He continued: “Many researchers on campus have shown interest in various forms. Some on information technology (IT), how will they their ITR skills to contribute. We have interviewed them. Some we have finished interviewing and we have made them part of the team based on the interview performance. So it will be unfolding gradually. Certainly, it will contribute to the eventual made in Nigeria car because now we are localising talents, we are building local capacities. I am sure at some points we will have the critical mass necessary for us to begin to move from there.”

At a reception organised for the Nigerian team of engineers preparing for the Qatar meet, Phillip Mshelbila, external communications manager (CX), African Cluster, Shell Nigeria, said this competition was an opportunity to put Nigeria on the map.

“You will concentrate on your design to build, test and actually race this car next year. I call it Eco Marathon challenge. So we have to conquer this challenge and win. We are looking forward to the team Nigeria coming back with the prize; to build a car that can take you the farthest distance with the least fuel. It gives us the opportunity with a Nigerian automobile. See how far India and Brazil have achieved.

“We see this as an opportunity as well to rekindle that flame in Nigeria to develop a Nigerian car despite these challenges. Our support is to enable this process to go forward and bring this into the consciousness of Nigerians. Our national pride and also our place in Africa and the world is at stake. It is not good enough to put a car together but it must compete and there is need for creativity and something unique.”

Dauda noted that the optimism for a 100 per cent made in Nigeria car began as part of the Centre for Automotive Design and Development (CADD). The ABU don explained: “It started as a project called three-wheel project which was started by one of the military regimes. After the three-wheel project was completed, it was tasked with looking at the possibility or feasibility of making a Nigerian car.

When it completed its work then, the military administration went ahead to set up CADD and domiciled it in ABU, which was headed by Clement Folayan who was then the Head of Department of Mechanical Engineering and the Dean of Engineering ABU, Zaria.

“The detailed work which they started by producing a three wheel vehicle was tailored after the India three wheel vehicle. That was the initial prototype they developed. After that they developed two more four-wheel vehicles, which indeed toured Nigeria. It drove all over the country and ended in Abuja where they presented it to the Minister of Science and Technology then.,” Dauda stated.

The university don said that the project was divided into phases. The second to the last demonstrated that essentially a Nigeria car could be made and which has made and demonstrated its capacity of being driven, the university don noted.

“The last part of the project was presenting this report: the technical design, the financial analysis, which is the economic analysis to the business community, what they call a stakeholder conference. In that forum, the stakeholders conference, is supposed to present a made in Nigeria car, a functioning made in Nigeria car to the business community and start the process of commercialising it, which essentially involves setting up a factory by the business community to start the Nigerian car. So that was where we were, it never happened.”

“During the Obasanjo administration, he dissolved the CADD and brought that function under the National Automotive Council. As we are now, that function is supposed to be under the National Automotive Council but the business community has not shown interest in developing that. The whole of these activities happened about 2002.”

Dauda however added that a lot of research activity has gone into automotive parts in Nigerian universities, a decade after the CADD was scrapped and assured that with the research output that can be pooled from the Nigerian universities, the team is capable of making even a better car than the one developed by CADD.

“Perhaps if the business community is not interested in developing it, government must provide seed money for the school to now build a pilot plant for the production of the made in Nigeria car, then that will in essence be demonstrated to the business community that is a viable venture and they may buy in. That is how all the countries that have built cars started,” Dauda concluded.

By: Alexander Chiejina