Smith Electric Appoints Distributor in Spain

Kevin Harkin, Sales Director for Smith Electric Vehicles, said: "Over the past three years one of the highest levels of enquiry we have received from any country came from Spain. This is an extremely important market to us, so it was vital that we found the right partner.

"Clem has the national sales infrastructure, but more importantly it also has the technical expertise to provide high quality product support to major fleets."

Based in Valencia, Clem is engaged in the sale, hire and maintenance of EVs, forklift trucks and aerial work platforms ("cherry pickers"). The company has 130 employees at 16 locations across Spain, 40 mobile service engineers and an equipment hire fleet of more than 2,000 machines. It is part of global equipment rental specialist Riwal.

Alejandro Sanchez Lupiañez, Director of Clem’s Ecological Division, said: "There is a huge, un-serviced demand for commercial electric vehicles in Spain.

"Smith Electric Vehicles is the European market leader and has proven products that we know will be a perfect fit with our customers’ fleet requirements."

Smith Electric Vehicles produces the Smith Edison light commercial vehicle in 18 configurations of panel van and chassis cab, plus a further six variants of an all-electric minibus. All are based on the Ford Transit platform, with a range of up to 100 miles on a single charge, recharge time from as little as three hours and a top speed of 50mph.

The Smith Newton electric goods vehicle is available in 16 models, with 7.5t, 10t and 12t chassis configurations. The truck has a range of up to 120 miles on a single charge, recharge time from six hours and a top speed of 50mph.

Designed for urban operations, the vehicles have a typical range of 80-120 miles (129-193km) on a single charge of their lithium-ion batteries. As well as reducing a fleet’s carbon footprint, the zero emission vehicles help improve air quality and deliver genuine cost savings in maintenance and fuel.

Clem will take delivery of its first Smith Electric vehicles in early 2011. These demonstration vehicles will go straight into trials with major fleet operators.

Clem joins a fast-growing global distributor network for Smith Electric Vehicles, which recently appointed Northern Lights Energy in Iceland, joining ElecTruckCity in France and Electric Vehicles Ireland.

www.smithelectricvehicles.com