Specialists at Liepaja University have finished working on the construction of a wooden electric car. Led by Uldis Zaimis, director of the "Smart Technologies" study programme at the Faculty of Science and Engineering, work began in March, and today the electric car is being tested in the real-world environment.

Fourth-year student of the "Information Technology" study programme, Janis Mackus, worked on assembling the car and says about the time spent on this task: "I assembled the car in about a month, but it could have been done faster. Since this was the first car, we had to work out solutions – the next one will go quicker. The project is interesting. Friends I told that I was building a wooden electric car were amazed – what is that!"

Project manager Uldis Zaimis explains: "These cars are popular globally, and copies of even famous brand models are being assembled. This model has the option to remove the bodywork and use only the platform. Furthermore, the wooden electric car has industrial applications – it can be used in agriculture for distributing animal feed, in forestry for transporting timber, in the entertainment sector, as well as in municipal services. It is quiet and ecological, with a load capacity of one tonne."

The client is the Riga High Technology Education Association, which will receive the working, ecologically clean "Woodpecker" open-source wooden electric car assembled at Liepaja University, along with a description of a training course for university natural science and innovative technology programmes. The courses, which will be in English, will cover the development of such an object – design, mechanical strength tests, motion kinetics development, electrical engineering, electronics, and programming. This model operates without a steering wheel – using a remote control – but there is also the possibility to steer the car with a steering wheel. In Liepaja University's new "Smart Technologies" study programme, it is possible to acquire the knowledge that allows for the development of such objects as well.