Karanik on the idea of a domestic electric car: We slightly overestimated our capabilities
"The attempt to immediately integrate our developments into a former petrol car, unfortunately, did not lead to a good consumer result."
The head of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus, Vladimir Karanik, told "Belarus 1" about the current status of the idea to create the first fully Belarusian electric car.
"The prototype actually exists. But initially, the discussion and the scientific program were about creating a component base for electric transport. The task was to prepare a domestic component base for our manufacturers: electric motors, gearboxes, inverters.
The task of creating an entire car — perhaps, we slightly overestimated our capabilities. We did not fully realize that a passenger car is, after all, a great many safety systems, multimedia, a power frame. And the attempt to immediately integrate our developments into a former petrol car, unfortunately, did not lead to a good consumer result."
Domestic electric cars would be in demand, Karanik believes.
"These are special-purpose vehicles, municipal equipment. This is an excursion bus for the Botanical Garden, which is currently being designed and will be manufactured. Warehouse electric transport, electric cars for airports. We have found our niche."
The head of the NAS added that there is already a domestic electric car from "BelGee".
"It's a very good model with very good consumer qualities, I can say as a user with experience. And our task now is to use our competencies to increase the percentage of localization of domestic developments, rather than building a car from scratch," said Karanik.
The "BelGee" plant in May 2025 showed the Geely EX-5 electric car. But later, it abandoned the idea of its serial production — launching this model is too expensive for Belarus.
Recall that in November, it became known that the State Control Committee uncovered corruption schemes in the structures of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus. Among the defendants were employees associated with the development of the first domestic electric car.
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