2023-05-13 14:48:20
Ebro’s tough commercial and industrial vehicles have returned after a long hibernation period of 36 years. He The first model of the new Ebro, revived by a project led by Btech, has been seen at the Salón Automobile Barcelona with the adventurer Jesús Calleja as godfather. It is an electric ‘pickup’ based on the Navara that Nissan stopped producing in Barcelona in 2021.
He ebro pickup model It is the first chapter of a story that looks to the past but with a projection for the future. In the same place where the company Motor Ibérica (fruit of the nationalization of Ford in Spain) and the Ebro brand were born in 1954, in the Barcelona Free Zone, they will start manufacturing the van and other models that include a light van also based on a Nissan model, the NV200.
Nissan reindustrialization
Altogether, the The new Ebro plans to manufacture 50,000 vehicles per year at the plant that Nissan abandoned in the Barcelona Free Zone when it has deployed its entire range of models in 2027. The Btech project to recover the historic Ebro brand, which was absorbed and condemned to oblivion by Nissan Motor Ibérica, is part of the candidacy that was the winner in the reindustrialization of the factory from Barcelona. Together with Ebro, the also Catalan company QEV will produce electric vans of the Zeroid brand.
Ebro plans to directly hire 150 employees in the administration, sales and marketing areas, to which will be added some 1,200 employees of the D Hub Factory consortium, which will produce the Ebro and Zeroid models and for other companies. These contracts, which have already begun, are nourished by the relocations of former Nissan workers. The Silence project to produce the S04 microcar also participates in reindustrialization.
The revival of Ebro will require an investment of 60 to 70 million euros. The new ‘pickup’ is an adaptation of the Nissan Navara model, which has been electrified and updated in its design. For now, Ebro will focus on the European market and will refrain from entering others where Nissan still sells its Navara truck under that name or under the names Frontier and NP300.
“Emotional component” of Ebro
The configurations of the Ebro Pickup include rear or all-wheel drive with two 220 kW (299 hp) electric motors with a 100 kWh lithium-ion battery and a range of up to 440 kilometers. It measures 5.2 meters long, 1.8 wide and 1.7 high and will have versions with different cabins to carry from two to five passengers.
“This is a historic moment for us and for the automotive sector in Spain and in Catalonia. Ebro marked an era in our country and contributed to the industrialization of one of the productive hearts of the sector,” said Pedro Calef, CEO of Ebro. “There is a very important emotional component,” he added in relation to Ebro’s return to the place where he was born.
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