The first Bulgarian electric hypercar will be presented in the fall

Producing electric hypercars in the village of Tuhovishta, located in a distant corner of the Bulgarian Rhodope mountains. When news about this first broke out about nine years ago, it sounded like fiction. But the idea of ​​Ahmed Merchev, who created the Alieno brand, for a factory for the production of electric hypercars in the Rhodopes seems increasingly real now.

The first stage of the construction of the factory has already been completed and in September the first prototype of an electric hypercar will be presented to the public.

In January of this year, we completed the first stage of the factory, and in February we began producing the first car prototype, which will be a one-seater," said Ahmed Merchev in a conversation with Economic.bg.

In fact, there are three prototypes currently in production, the first of which will be officially presented on September 27 in the village of Slashten, and dynamic tests will begin by the end of the year.

The prototypes will be suitable for driving on racetracks and not on city streets. The plans of Alieno OOD are, on the basis of these first three prototype cars, to develop a small serial production of a more affordable one-seater sports hypercar for the racetrack. This in turn will help the further development of the concept hypercars and the full completion of the factory.

In reality, these three prototypes will serve as our research work mules. Thanks to them, we will further develop our propulsion and power supply technology," says Merchev.

Alieno's goal is to produce unique electric hypercars, not mass-production ones. Plans are for the factory to produce around 10 cars in the first three years after the start of the serial production. Then, in the next ten years, the capacity can increase to 100 cars.

A factory on the site of a military barracks

It all started in 2015 when Ahmed wanted to buy a sports car for his own use. Looking at the market, however, he found that there was no car that met his criteria - to have the shape of a Lamborghini but to be powered by electricity. Therefore, he decided that he would make that car himself. So, his idea to make an electric car grew into the creation of a Bulgarian brand for the production of electric hypercars.

Ahmed Merchev is an engineer by profession and since 2002 he has been working in robotics. He owns four other companies besides Alieno OOD that deal with robotics and electronics. So, in 2015, he decided that he would put some of the money he earned from these businesses into this ambitious project.

Working for years in Sofia, he decided that it was a good idea to help develop his native region - Slashten (note: the village is located in the Southwestern Rhodope mountains near the border with Greece). However, there was no suitable terrain in that village for the construction of the factory. After some time, he managed to purchase some land on which former military barracks were located in the village of Tuhovishta.

We actually started construction of the factory in 2018-2019 on the site of the former border guards post, which is 15 acres in size," Ahmed says.

At the beginning of this year, the first stage of the factory was officially completed. And there are 3,500 square meters of mobile sheds ready. 2,500 of them are set for production, whereas tests are carried out on an area of ​​1,000 square meters.

Since its launch in 2015, Ahmed has set himself a deadline of 15 years for the full realization of the project.

As a plan, we have decided that in the next 20 years, humanoid robots will start being produced in the factory, as I have experience with that field since 2002. In the future, space industry systems will also be added to the mix," says Ahmed Merchev.

The electric hypercars that are about to go into series production will have more than 5,000 horsepower, although the prototypes that will be presented this fall will have up to 1,000 horsepower.

The main goal of these prototypes is to validate our technology," says Merchev, specifying that the hypercars have more of a collector's value since those that will enter serial production in the Rhodope village will have a price tag of between 2 and 4 million euros.

There is already interest from buyers, but Alieno has not concluded any preliminary contracts. According to Ahmed, this is best done after the factory starts mass production.

Ahmed also plans to expand the activity in other Bulgarian cities, such as Gotse Delchev, Plovdiv and Sofia. The idea is to open up different branches because it's "too hard to get all the engineers to come to Tuhovishta".

At first, we will be able to provide between 40 and 100 people with jobs at the factory. For comparison, at the moment the permanent workers in the factory are about 15 people.”

Project financing

Ahmed Merchev, who is the CEO and majority partner, together with four other partners, are the people behind the Alieno OOD brand. According to Merchev, everything related to the development of the idea for the creation of electric hypercars in Bulgaria has been financed with personal funds - his own and those of his partners who recognized the validity of the idea.

The project costs tens of millions of euros. It is financed thanks to my and my partners’ personal funds. I attracted these people with the idea of ​​creating something in Bulgaria, namely, to develop something that still sounds like science fiction," says Ahmed.

He also says that he has not used any state funding. Back in 2015, he applied for the EU’s "Innovation and Competitiveness" program with the idea of ​​using the funds to purchase a machine that would make the car chassis; however, his project was not approved, and a second attempt has not been made since then and he chose to finance everything with personal funds instead.

Hypercars and cryptocurrencies

Two years ago, Alieno also launched its own cryptocurrency with the idea of ​​funding part of the work for creating the car prototype. However, at this stage there are no investors or buyers, so Ahmed's team has decided to use it as a technological solution for their cars.

We saw blockchain technology as a prospect when talking about security systems. So, we created this blockchain system to serve the cars technologically, that is, hypercars will have a built-in blockchain system,” explains Ahmed.

Translated by Tzvetozar Vincent Iolov