Looks Like a Ford, Acts Like a Smith

April 16, 2008 – Vol.13 No. 4

LOOKS LIKE A FORD, ACTS LIKE A SMITH ELECTRIC VEHICLE.

The car companies have no love for the oil companies. Auto and oil are not in cahoots. If they were, why would oil let auto - particularly US auto - suffer such pain? At well over a hundred dollars a barrel, auto is fed up with oil.

Big auto makes big money making cars and trucks. What those cars and trucks are energized by is irrelevant as long buyers line up in showrooms to get them. Big auto would make the switch to something other than gasoline and diesel in a heartbeat if there was another readily available fuel and the technology under the hood was trustworthy and easy produce en masse.

Automakers, too, would begin making the switch if there was a set-in-stone path to follow that led them from petroleum to something else without diversion, especially diversions created by policy makers.

For now there seems to be a combination of readily available fuel and trustworthy technology that is creating a market-driven path: It is the petroleum towards battery electric path. Petroleum fueled vehicles have evolved into hybrids which are rapidly evolving into plug-in hybrids which will likely evolve into battery electric vehicles with a combustion engine (and eventually, possibly a fuel cell) as an optional range extender. (The combustion engine could be fired by biofuels when issues with biofuels are resolved.)

Since the auto companies are still exploring many options – with no unity among them about which technology or fuel to follow – they are helping to develop alternative technologies out of the back doors of their shops. Either indirectly or through direct collaboration, the automakers are working with small companies which are willing to pursue alternative technologies.

Case in point Ford’s collaboration with Smith Electric Vehicles of the UK. Ford is supplying Smith with trucks and vans to be battery-electrified for the European and North American market. Of particular interest is Ford’s willingness to allow Smith to electrify a vehicle that will be a new to the Ford’s US offering by next year, the Transit Connect. In Ford’s showrooms soon the Transit Connect will be a conventionally-powered small, car-based mini-van. In Smith’s showrooms by 2009 it will be the Ampere. On the street, to casual observers, the quiet, pollution-free Ampere will appear as though Ford has gotten into the electric vehicle business.

Smith’s Ampere, coming to the UK and Europe in 2008 and North America in 2009 has a Gross Vehicle Weight (GVW) of 5159 lbs (2,340kg), with payload capacity of about 1760 lbs (800kg). The compact and light vehicle is capable of a top speed of 70 mph and a range in excess of 100 miles on one battery charge. A lithium-ion battery pack is slung underneath, thus does not impact on the vehicle body’s carrying capacity volume. It is powered by a 50 kw motor.

Ampere is aimed at urban operators using large fleets of light vans, in sectors such as postal & courier, utilities and telecommunications.

Smith is also working with Ford on the future development of other commercial electric vehicles for Europe and North America. In North America, Ford has agreed to 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, a pure electric truck using the Ford F650 chassis cab, with a GVW of up to 28,700 lbs (13,000kg). The vehicle is expected to have specifications similar to the Smith Newton pure electric truck that is sold in the UK and Europe. Newton has a top speed of 50 mph, with a range in excess of 100 miles on one battery charge. Smith expects to start US manufacturing of the Faraday Mark II in the second half of 2008.

Darren Kell, Chief Executive of The Tanfield Group Plc, which owns Smith Electric Vehicles, said: “This relationship with Ford in North America will provide Smith with vehicles that will be recognizable to - and readily accepted by - American customers.”

So in couple of years look at fine print on the side of that noiseless, pollution-free Ford van or truck you see. It may be a Smith, and it may be a new silent step by Ford to go electric.

Links:

Smith Electric Vehicles
http://www.smithelectricvehicles.com

Electric Trucks, Ready to Roll.

Enova: Deliveries of Electric Drive Systems to Tanfield’s Smith Electric Vehicles Have Begun.