Smith Electric Vehicles has decided to bring their electric trucks to the U.S. They plan to set up manufacturing and produce up to 10,000 of the electric trucks per year. Smith Electric Vehicles is based in the U.K. and has introduced their electric delivery trucks to their home market and Europe. Now they plan to expand into the U.S.
Smith will produce their Newton model truck (pictured above). The Newton is the world’s largest high-performance electric truck. This truck has a gross vehicle weight (GVW) of up to 24,000 lbs. GVW is the weight of the truck including payload. The Newton offers these performance statistics:
- Battery powered 120Kw drive system with a max speed of 50 mph
- Fully charged range up to 150 miles
- Regenerative braking to recover energy from braking process
- Payload capacity up to 15,800 lb.
In the U.K., Smith Electric Vehicles is on track to ship 250 trucks in 2007. Customers include DHL, Starbucks and the Royal Mail. Production in the U.S. is projected to start in 2010.
As a fully electric truck, the Newton has zero tailpipe emissions. Replacing the thousands of diesel powered delivery trucks in urban areas with trucks like these would have a significant positive impact on our cities’ air quality.
Source: Alternative Energy News
3 Comments
Excellent news. With so many people, for whatever reason, telling us we can’t have electric vehicles just yet (in some cases because they prefer to see money and attention poured into projects lasting 20 years - thereby allowing the internal combustion engine to run another decade or two), it’s great to see someone dismissing the excuses and just getting on with it.
Incidentally, I think the provider of the source story is mistaken. US production is commencing next month. 2010 is the year by when Smith aim to be churning out 10,000 per year.
We are Biodiesel producers
Fascinating: Our company is looking for a number of delivery companies centrally located in large populated areas that would; 1.) buy electric delivery trucks 2.) Install a diesel generator to charge those trucks at the terminal 3.) Run the Generators on biofuel that is created by our company that sells a totally neutral produced biodiesel. By the way all of the technology needed to build this truck here in the US is available today in the U.S. See: Grumman Aluminum delivery trucks 1980 versions. See: GE electric lightweight propulsion units. But wait, maybe Americans can’t read, those container ships can bring these trucks to us as soon as they are “invented by others”
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