Despite the failure of the Esemka car in a recent emissions test, the Solo Techno Park (STP) has for the last two months enjoyed popularity given its role in helping to unveil the home-assembled car to the public
espite the failure of the Esemka car in a recent emissions test, the Solo Techno Park (STP) has for the last two months enjoyed popularity given its role in helping to unveil the home-assembled car to the public.
The park refers to the place where the car received its “finishing touches” in the assembling work carried out by vocational senior high school students before it was sent to the Propulsion and Motor Thermodynamics Center in Serpong, Banten, for the emissions test.
Built on a 7.1-hectare plot of land in Jebres, Surakarta in 2004, the place was initially named the Solo Competency Technology Centre (SCTC), before becoming the STP in 2008.
“The name was changed to accommodate expansion,” STP’s cooperation division director, Darsono, said.
Since then, the park has dealt with both business and technology. Training, practice, development and production are provided to vocational high school students and university students majoring in engineering with skills in their respective fields.
“This is basically a place to develop their skills and expertise,” Darsono said, adding that the park had been receiving support from the Industry and Trade Agency.
He said he could guarantee that its graduates were marketable and ready to employ technicians.
He boasted that his graduates were once offered a project worth Rp 650 million to produce an animation movie.
The Esemka car, he said, was just one of various products that the STP had developed together with the technicians.
Other products include a crusher machine to process plastic waste and a machine used to process cloth waste, all made according to order.
The complex is equipped with a teaching factory, a workshop, a research and development department, an incubator building and a welding pool.
This year, according to Darsono, the so-called Solo Trade Center will be established in the compound, which will include a science and technology showroom.
The project is estimated to cost Rp 300 billion, apportioned from the municipal and state budgets.
A number of institutions and organizations, including the German GTZ, have also been involved in the development of the STP, mostly in providing technical support.
The municipal authority has said they will improve the car in order to pass the emissions test before drawing up plan for its mass production.
Three new buildings will be established to facilitate the anticipated mass production.
“We plan to have the mass production of Esemka cars centered at the Solo Techno Park,” Surakarta Mayor Joko Widodo said.
— JP/Kusumasari Ayuningtyas
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