Smith Electric Vehicles

Smith Electric Vehicles (also known as Smith's) is a manufacturer of electric delivery vans based in the UK.

They were established in the early 20th century building milk floats and bread vans, mainly for The Co-operative. Their most known milk floats are of their Cabac design which later, after a facelift, became known as the Elizabethan. They also made coal trucks and vegetable stalls, many of which were later converted into milk floats. Contrary to popular belief they still construct their Elizabethan design.

In the early 90s doorstep delivery of milk started to dwindle and half of all milk rounds stopped in the next decade. Smith's were worried about the business and developed the Newton range of Electric delivery vans. They can go up to 50mph and travel around 150 miles between charges. Sainsbury's alone are taking over 1000, so the business was saved for at least another 5 years.

Vehicles

Ford F-Series chassis

Ford will supply Smith with a range of its Ford F-Series commercial vehicles as the chassis for Smith's US-specific vehicles.

The first of these vehicles is the Faraday mark II, built using the Ford F650 chassis cab

Van

The Smith Ampere utilises the Ford Transit Connect chassis.

Taxi

LTI and Smith will produce an all-electric version of LTI's TX4 black cab, branded the TX4EFact|date=May 2008.

Other electric vehicle makers in the UK

* Modec

Competitors

* Electrorides
* Peterbilt

References

1http://news.bbc.co.uk/player/nol/newsid_6260000/newsid_6260000/6260098.stm?bw=bb&mp=rm&news=1&nol_storyid=6260098&bbcws=1

External links

* [http://www.smithelectricvehicles.com Official website]