Abu Dhabi: The Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week (ADSW) and World Future Energy Summit, a part of the ADSW, concluded on Thursday in the capital highlighting the future of clean mobility, clean water desalination alliance, smart city transit and the need to bring electric vehicles to the mainstream.
Experts from across the world said the UAE is on the verge of mainstream low-emission vehicles and it has mass-market adoption of low-emission vehicles even as Masdar and Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) launched the joint report on the future transport.
The mobility conference, part of the World Future Energy Summit, directed the local and global attention to the changing automotive industry.
Michael Liebriech, founder of BNEF, discussed some of the factors about the low-emission vehicles. He said, “With unsubsidised solar power and renewable energy now costing as little as 2 cents per kilowatt hour, the energy industry will be able to cater to the increase in supply needed for the mainstream adoption of electric vehicles.”
Ismail Sethi, regional product marketing manager for SUV, Crossovers and Electric Vehicles at Nissan, said, “Electrification is not only the future, it is the present. As the world’s leading EV manufacturer, we have sold more than 280,000 Nissan LEAFs globally, making it the world’s best-selling electric vehicle. LEAF customers have driven more than 3.5 billion zero-emission kilometres combined.
“As global leaders in electric vehicles, we are committed to contributing to the success of electric vehicles in the UAE, and believe the ambitious plans set out by the government will be met,” Sethi said.
Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week [ADSW], which started on January 13 and the World Future Energy Summit, a part of ADSW, concluded in the capital on Thursday.
On the final day, Steve Severance, head of programme management and investments at Masdar City, moderated a panel discussion on the findings of a new report titled “The Masdar Report on Technologies for Future Smart City Transit”.
The panellists discussed the central role of reference data, noting that the roll-out of 5G mobile technology will expedite the progress of next-generation mobility.
Gerard Evenden, executive senior partner of Foster+Partners, said, “We need to manufacture more buildings off-site and assemble on-site. Of course, all of this is designed for deconstruction, so it is all prefabricated off-site and assembled on-site.”
