Smith Electric Vehicles is returning to the U.S market after it announced an agreement to form a joint venture with Hong Kong-based FDG Electric Vehicles.
Senior Editor Tom Berg looks at the state of the electric truck market as fleets struggle to balance benefits with economics.
Following recent reports it suspended production, a producer of all-electric medium commercial vehicles, Smith Electric, has secured a $42 million investment so it can resume operations.
Reports of Smith Electric Vehicles’ death may have been exaggerated. Published news stories quote the company’s president as saying it will restart operations in a few months with new financial backing, more efficient manufacturing and a revised line of battery-electric trucks.
Smith Electric Vehicles is alive and operating, even if it’s not building trucks for a while, according to Bryan Hensel, the specialty builder’s CEO and co-founder, refuting reports that the company had closed.
The commercial electric truck maker Smith Electric Vehicles has suspended production for an unspecified period of time. The DOE awarded the company $32 million in grants during 2009 and 2010 to produce more than 500 vehicles to be placed in various fleets across the U.S., however, only 439 have reportedly been produced.
Frito-Lay’s Mike O’Connell leads a team that focuses on adapting the best leading-edge technologies for its specific needs.
The Houston-Galveston Area Council is partnering with the Center for Transportation and the Environment and Smith Electric Vehicles Corp. to replace existing diesel-powered delivery vehicles with all-electric medium- and heavy-duty Smith Newton trucks in the Houston-Galveston area.
Smith Electric Vehicles has signed a letter of intent to form a joint venture with Taikang Technology Corp. in Taiwan. Taikang Technology, a commercial vehicle manufacturer in Taiwan, has twenty-five years of automotive experience and has expertise in upfitting specialized municipal commercial vehicles.
A research team from Georgia Tech compared medium-duty electric and diesel urban delivery trucks for a range of scenarios and discovered the total costs of ownership were very similar – but the cost-competitiveness of the electric truck drops in drive cycles with higher average speed.
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