Egyptian billionaire Ahmed Elsewedy plans to build electric cars in Algeria

Elsewedy Electric, the Egyptian cable and power equipment maker run by billionaire Ahmed Elsewedy, plans to build electric and hybrid cars in Algeria, extending one of the largest Egyptian industrial investments in the country.

The company has submitted a feasibility study for the plant to Algeria’s prime minister’s office, which is reviewing it, Algerian news site Dzair Tube reported on Thursday. Mostafa Awad El Halawani, chief executive of Elsewedy Electric’s Algerian unit, discussed the plan on the sidelines of NAPEC 2026, an energy industry conference in the western city of Oran.

The plant would make vehicles under the Elsewedy EZZ brand, which the group already produces in Egypt. It would build a fully electric car and a hybrid that Awad described as running about 80% on electricity and 20% on petrol. The engineering components would come from Germany and China. The company is aiming for 50% to 60% of the parts to be made in Algeria, with the motor the only part it does not plan to produce locally.

Elsewedy has not said where the factory would be built, how many vehicles it would make or when production would start. It has not given a separate cost for the car plant, which is part of a $1.3 billion investment program the group announced for Algeria in May.

A growing Algerian bet

The car project is the latest step in a fast expansion. In September 2025, Elsewedy signed a memorandum of understanding with Algeria’s investment promotion agency at the Intra-African Trade Fair in Algiers, pledging $2.5 billion in investments. Awad said at the time that the figure was five times what the company had already put into the country. The plan included 10 factories.

The $1.3 billion program announced eight months later takes the group beyond electrical equipment into aluminum, copper and plastics production, as well as housing, tourism and agriculture.

Elsewedy has operated in Algeria for more than 15 years and holds nearly 45% of the country’s electrical equipment market, according to the French-language site Observ’Algérie. Three new units making data cables, electrical insulation materials and dry-type transformers began production this year. The company says they source about 80% of their inputs locally, partly using Algerian steel.

It has also asked for approval to build a steel products plant and seven specialized units making pipes, PVC resin, fiber optic cable, center-pivot irrigation systems and electrical transformers. Algerian authorities have responded favorably and are allocating industrial land, according to Dzair Tube. An aluminum plant is under consideration.

Elsewedy says it is Algeria’s only domestic producer of high-voltage cables rated up to 220 kilovolts. The company says its local output has saved Algeria more than $1 billion in imports. It has deepened its partnership with Sonelgaz, the state power company, and plans to export about a quarter of its Algerian production to around 20 markets, including the United States, Italy, Saudi Arabia and Chile.

The family behind the group

Elsewedy Electric was founded by the Elsewedy family in 1938 and has grown into one of Africa’s biggest industrial companies. In 2024 it reported revenue of $5.13 billion from 34 production sites in 19 countries, and it employs more than 19,000 people.

Ahmed Elsewedy, the company’s president and chief executive, owns about 25% of the Cairo-listed shares. His stake was worth about $1.11 billion at the end of September, according to Billionaires.Africa calculations. His brother Sadek holds a stake of the same size.

The car business at home is still young. In May, Egyptian Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly met Ahmed Elsewedy to review the group’s projects. After the meeting, the government said the Ezz Elsewedy vehicle factory in Egypt would eventually be able to produce about 80,000 new vehicles. Elsewedy told Madbouly the group plans further investment in electric vehicles.

Algeria has been pushing to build a domestic car industry after years of stop-start policy on vehicle imports and assembly. A locally built electric model would give Elsewedy a foothold in that market, provided its study wins approval from the prime minister’s office.