Hiriko

Armando Gaspar will be directing the industrialisation of the HIRIKO electric vehicle

Engineer Armando Gaspar will be joining us over the next few days as the Director of Industrialisation of the HIRIKO electric vehicle, the first prototype of which is to be unveiled next 24th January before the President of the European Commission, Durao Barroso, in Brussels. Commercial production of the revolutionary car developed by a consortium of Basque companies is to start next year.

Gaspar, who was born in Portugal and was educated in Germany, knows the automotive field in Spain very well, especially everything that is related with suppliers, manufacturing procedures and markets. In 1980 he worked for the Daimler Chrysler consortium as a production engineer in Dusseldorf and Ludwigsfelde.  In 1994 he moved to the headquarters in Stuttgart where he worked as Purchasing Manager for Industrial Vehicles. He was later designated Vice Chairman for Production and Product Engineering in the Brazil Daimler Chrysler Division of Industrial Vehicles.

Armando Gaspar has been the chairman of the Industrial Centres in Daimler Spain between 2004 and 2007. His presence in HIRIKO guarantees a magnificent penetration in the market. In the HIRIKO General Manager’s opinion, “Gaspar is amongst the few people who have an in-depth knowledge of automobile production processes and the new tendencies that electric cars are setting within the demand for sustainable mobility of the new cities throughout the world”.

The first prototype of the HIRIKO car will be unveiled next 24^th January in the headquarters of the Presidency of the European Union. The first units to come out of the plant at Vitoria-Gasteiz will be homologated before July as a previous step towards industrial production and commercialization, which is foreseen for 2013.

Several European and American cities will be the scenes for the initial trials in autumn this year of the first HIRIKO cars. The HIRIKO is a 100% electric and electronic two-seater, with four-wheel drive, capable of folding up for parking and is equipped with a state-of-the-art information system for permanent communication in an intelligent city environment.