Smith All Electric Newton for the North American Market

Smith Electric Vehicles US Corporation, currently headquartered in Overland Park, Kansas, is planning on producing all electric trucks for depot-based delivery fleets in North America. In the UK companies like Starbucks and DHL use the vehicles in dense urban areas.

The Newton model will be the first Smith vehicle available in this market. This is a class 5,6 o 7 vehicle with a payload of up to 16,280 lbs. While not quite a highway speed vehicle, the Newton is not a low speed vehicle either can reach speeds of up to 50 mph and has a range of over 100 miles depending on the battery option chosen.

The Newton originally used anywhere from two to six Sodium Nickel Chloride batteries produced by Zebra and each battery cost $16,000 and provided 22KW hours of power. However the company expects that most of the models sold in the US will use this Lithium ion type batteries. The 2007 version of the truck costs $150,000 with the Zebra batteries accounting for $64,000 or just over 40% of the cost. Additional batteries also reduce payload capacity.

Learn more and at Autobloggreen.com

Update:  See some video interviews from some people in the industry that drove the truck at Autobloggreen.com