Envirotech Vehicles Inc. (Nasdaq: EVTV) said plans to open an $80 million manufacturing plant in the Clark Free Trade Zone in the Philippines are continuing to advance.
The electric-vehicle maker, headquartered in Osceola, announced it has secured and taken possession of a 9,842-SF final assembly facility in the trade zone, located about an hour outside of Manila, the capital.
The plant will open with two production lines, scaling up to five, enabling Envirotech to produce more than 2,000 vehicles annually. Envirotech has started making "minor improvements" to the building, it said in a news release.
"Our team has taken several trips to the Philippines in 2023 as we pursue standing up an electric vehicle manufacturing facility in the Clark Free Trade Zone," Phillip Oldridge, Envirotech CEO, said in a statement. "The local labor force is both well-qualified and tech-savvy - ideal characteristics to build a local workforce for electric mobility."
Oldridge said he expects several hundred jobs to be created.
In March, Oldridge told Philstar.com, a Filipino news outlet, that the facility would serve the domestic market and also have an export business. Envirotech is leasing the building from Berthaphil Inc., an operator of real estate developments in the Clark Free Trade Zone.
In 2022, the Philippines enacted the Electric Vehicle Industry Development Act to encourage growth in the green energy automobile sector. EVIDA offers incentives to lower the cost of making electric vehicles in the country. Envirotech has taken advantage of other incentives there as well, the company said.
Envirotech provides purpose-built, zero-emission electric vehicle fleets for commercial delivery services, schools and public and private transportation service companies.
