| According to the Detroit News, startup electric-car company Detroit Electric is pushing back production of its SP:01 EV by one month. This doesn't seem like a big deal—and at least the news doesn't involve Detroit Electric going belly-up, as has been the case recently with several other fledgling companies focused on EVs. The North American CEO of Detroit Electric told the Detroit News that production will now begin this September instead of August, and that the company hopes its Michigan production facility will have an annual capacity of 2500 units and employ up to 100 workers. Unfortunately for Detroit Electric, it appears that might not be the case. The Detroit News article mentions that Detroit Electric is still looking for a production facility, which indicates the automaker's production delay could be longer than one month. This tidbit was backed up by a message from Albert Lam, overall CEO of Detroit Electric Holdings and sent to us by a company spokesperson, which reads in part: "Once the lease on the facility in Michigan is signed, we expect U.S. production to commence between six to eight months from that date." So hypothetically, that means even if the company signed a lease today, the first SP:01s won't roll off the line until December—at the earliest. Another potential hiccup—or land mine, depending on how things turn out—revolves around certifying the SP:01 for sale here in the U.S. When the SP:01 was revealed earlier this year, company representatives expressed confidence that their Lotus Elise–based EV could piggyback on Lotus's low-volume automaker safety exemptions. Trouble is, Lotus's low-volume safety exemptions expired two years ago, forcing the Elise out of the U.S. market. The car lacked smart airbags and didn't quite meet federal stability-control requirements, and Lotus didn't have the dough to fix either of those problems. (Toyota also stopped building the engine Lotus used to power the Elise, an issue that doesn't really affect the electric SP:01.) Sure enough, Albert Lam's message regarding Detroit Electric's proposed production start date includes the caveat: "However, we can only begin production and sales activities once we have completed the current process to obtain the necessary certification and approvals."
Assuming Detroit Electric finds a production facility soon and either re-ups Lotus's expired safety exemption or tweaks the airbags and stability-control computer itself, the SP:01 could hit the road sometime early next year. The company promises that it will announce details about its corporate strategy—including production, sales networks, and pricing—as soon as it solves the issues of where the car will be built and whether it can even sell it in the U.S. Only time will tell when that will happen.  from Car and Driver Blog http://blog.caranddriver.com | |||
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