North eco vans on US roads soon

Mar 31 2009 By Karen Dent, The Journal

JOBS at electric van designer Tanfield have been safeguarded after its US joint venture announced plans to open a £7m plant in Kansas City to assemble vehicles designed and developed in the North East.

Smith Electric Vehicles US Corporation (SEV US Corp), which is jointly owned by the Tanfield Group and a consortium of US private investors, will start putting together vehicles at the new site in the second half of the year.

The group has received £2m in training funds and incentives from Kansas City and the State of Missouri.

The electric, zero-emission vehicles will be designed and engineered at Tanfield’s Vigo Centre HQ in Washington and the North East company will receive a royalty on each one sold.

Tanfield chief executive Darren Kell said: "It will increase the amount of reliance the American market has on our engineering, supply chain and marketing here. We’ll probably be looking to increase our engineering capacity here. It will be happening in the third quarter of the year."

He said the new US plant could "potentially" create jobs at Tanfield in Washington, but because of the difficulties in the motor industry at the moment, he was unable to guarantee any new employment or how many jobs might result from the US factory. But it will underpin the 230 employees at Tanfield’s Washington site, who last February voted to accept a four-day week because of the recession. The company has shed about 170 staff in two rounds of redundancies because of the downturn, which has hit the motor industry especially hard.

The Kansas assembly plant is expected to create 120 jobs by next year as it ramps up production of the vehicles, which will mainly be used on delivery routes. First off the production line will be the Smith Newton, the world’s biggest battery electric-powered truck.

US vending machine group Canteen Vending Service has signed a letter of intent to buy some of the first vehicles assembled at Kansas.

Frito-Lay North America, part of the giant PepsiCo group, and the Pacific Gas and Electric Company, have also signed up to the scheme as launch partners.

The US division is also involved in Tanfield’s project with Ford to produce an electric version of the Ford Transit Connect van, which is scheduled to start production next year.

Ford vice president, global product development, Derrick Kuzak said: "We are pleased to be collaborating with SEV US Corp on the first of the battery electric vehicles we will bring to market over the next several years.

"With the delivery of the battery electric Transit Connect, together we will be delivering a product that will satisfy the needs of fleet customers interested in moving toward electric mobility solutions."