Ukrainian engineering company Ecofactor is tapping into a niche yet important market as it plans to create electric vehicles specifically for people with disabilities.
The company’s Ukrainian Social Electric Car (USEC) has presented a single-occupant electric car that allows people with disabilities to enter it without the need of getting off of their wheelchairs and drive it on their own.
The vehicle is expected to be on the market by 2024 and its price won’t exceed $10,000.
According to Ecofactor’s founder and CEO Sergey Velchev, when creating this car, he was thinking of war veterans of Russia’s war against Ukraine who got injured and now can’t move without wheelchairs.
“We said to ourselves that we need to do something for the people returning from the war,” Velchev told the Kyiv Post. “Many of those wounded in war are wounded forever and they need special transport to get around the city.”
Ecofactor started to work on the car back in 2017 and finally presented the prototype in August 2020. The production and manufacturing stage starts in 2021.
According to Ukrhelp, a charity that helps people with disabilities in Ukraine, there are more than 2.8 million people with disabilities living in the country, representing 6.1% of the total population. Furthermore, 80% are of working age. As the figures continue to rise every year, Velchev believes that USEC will be a game-changer for their lives.
“Disability-friendly vehicles in Ukraine are poorly designed and don’t ensure comfortable rides for people who face mobility problems,” Velchev said. “We wanted to make a difference in the lives of these people.”
The CEO describes the process of designing the electric vehicle as “emotionally difficult and enormously challenging.” The challenge, according to Velchev, was to invent the reclining backrest that supports the head and neck of the driver.
Another challenge, according to Velchev, was to make the vehicle suitable for all clients regardless of differences in height, arms-length, and physical limits.
“People with disabilities are members of society like all of us but they are limited in mobility,” Velchev said. “We are giving them hope for a better life and we will not let them down.”
One of the features that comes with the USEC vehicle is an app that can move the vehicle if it is parked in such a way that limits access for wheelchair users.
Wheelchair users who tested the electric vehicle — including Uliana Pcholkina, the 2014 world champion in para-karate — said that it provided mobility that they hadn’t had before.
Ukraine’s Infrastructure Minister Vladyslav Krykliy came to Ecofactor’s first public presentation of the vehicle on Aug. 21.
“I am grateful to the founders of the first Ukrainian electric car for people with disabilities,” said Krykliy at the event back. “The state must do everything possible to enable as many citizens as possible to afford such products.”
