The most significant shifts in transport often happen quietly, away from the highways, and right now, the race to electrify the “last mile” of private campuses is heating up. NAVEO, a brand under Roots Industries India Pvt. Ltd., has officially broken ground on a major international expansion, bringing its specialised electric vehicles to the high-growth markets of the Middle East, North Africa, and Southeast Asia. This move, announced on the 2nd of January, 2026, signals that the demand for sustainable, low-speed mobility is no longer just a niche interest but a critical operational requirement for the world’s developing mega-projects.
At the core of this rollout is a strategic push to deploy NAVEO’s battery-operated fleet across the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Morocco, alongside key Southeast Asian nations like Indonesia and Malaysia. The company is not going it alone; they have collaborated with SBR Batteries to anchor their presence in the UAE, leveraging a partnership that combines NAVEO’s manufacturing prowess with SBR’s robust distribution and after-sales network. This alliance is designed to fast-track the adoption of green mobility solutions in a region that is aggressively pivoting away from fossil-fuel dependence for internal logistics.
NAVEO’s primary weapon in this expansion is the X-Series, a lineup of purpose-built electric vehicles that prioritise reliability over raw speed. Unlike retrofitted golf carts, these machines comprising the passenger-focused XP and the utility-centric XU models are engineered with double wishbone suspension and advanced safety features like disc brakes and fail-safe directional controls. They are designed specifically for the controlled environments of universities, resorts, and industrial hubs, where silence and zero emissions are paramount. This focus allows NAVEO to offer a product that is significantly cheaper to run and maintain than traditional fuel-based alternatives, directly addressing the operational budgets of large-scale facility managers.
The expansion is a logical next step for a company part of the Roots Group, an industrial heavyweight with a manufacturing legacy dating back to 1970. By controlling the entire production process from their base in India and leveraging their UAE hub, NAVEO ensures that their vehicles are rugged enough to handle the scorching heat of Riyadh or the humidity of Kuala Lumpur. This vertical integration separates them from competitors who merely assemble imported kits, allowing for rapid customisation from ambulance configurations for hospitals to cargo buggies for factory floors.
This move comes at a time when the broader market is poised for growth, with analysts predicting the MENA EV sector will double in value by 2029. Governments in the region are actively seeking partners to help them meet ambitious environmental targets, such as the UAE’s “Vision 2030”. By expanding its electric vehicle footprint now, NAVEO is positioning itself as the infrastructure backbone for these green initiatives, ensuring that as new smart cities rise, the vehicles moving silently within them are NAVEO-branded.
While global automotive giants focus on highway-capable EVs, NAVEO’s strategy highlights a crucial gap in the market: the need for specialised, low-speed transport. As the UAE continues leading EV infrastructure development, the question for facility managers is no longer if they should electrify their internal fleets, but how quickly they can transition to avoid being left behind by the efficiency curve. NAVEO’s arrival suggests that for many, the answer is already here.
