Page 2 - Smith Electric News Today

EV startup Chanje had an ahead-of-its-time plan to sell electric vans to the likes of FedEx, Ryder, even Amazon. But the founder’s curious management style, and turmoil at its Chinese parent company, led to a remarkable collapse with lots of collateral damage.

Electric Trucks Market Becoming ‘Red Hot’, Explore Giants Move | Zenith Motors, Navistar, Tesla

Electric Trucks Market Becoming ‘Red Hot’, Explore Giants Move | Zenith Motors, Navistar, Tesla

Company here to discuss. sometimes innovation costs money. they have not turned a profit. you have to stick to it. >> wait a minute. the government thinks it can pick winners and make money. well heres another example that it cannot. smith electric has lost $30 million of your money, taxpayer o get out s gone. there and create electric vehicles for municipal governments. they created a few and the jobs they were supposed to create cost $414,000 of your money per job created which has now been lo...

The economic angle today. >> reporter: welcome to this setting we found in kansas city. just to my right is smith electric. its a police that makes electric batteries for large delivery trucks. your coco cola, pepsi truck, cable trucks, those kind of electric batteries are now supported by the recovery act. president obama is going to come here and talk about how the initial infusion of stimulus cash plus the investment that initial investment leveraged created jobs in a green economy. hes going...

Ahead to 2012. the overtone unmistakenably political, contessa, yes. hes stopping here at smith electric. you can see fine smith electric products behind us, beneficiaries of $32 million in stimulus money. they make all electric trucks, 100-mile range. theyre used mostly for deliveries in an inner city or urban setting. he has two fund-raisers for an individual named robin carnahan of the missouri carnahans, a well-known political family here. shes running against roy blount whos represented a d...

And is in the midst of what the white house likes to call recovery summer. the president is going to come here and talk about what is happening at smith electric, with the back tkropb of persistent unemployment across the country. martha: lets talk a little bye of politics major. this is the first time that he is appearing with robin carnahan. what is it about his choice to go out there and support her specifically. >> reporter: for whatever reason robin carnahan was out of the state. this time ...

Two years of brutal recession, a decade of economic insecurity. and there are going to be hard days ahead. thats the truth. its going to take a while for us to dig ourselves out of this hole. but what you are proving here, each and every one of you who work here at smith electric is the promise of a brighter future. what youre proving is that if we hold fast to that spirit of entrepreneurship and innovation, thats always defined america, were not just going to emerge from this period of turmoil,...

But we made those decisions because we had to stop that free fall. because we made those hard choices, our economy is in a different place today than it was just a year ago. one of those decisions was to provide critical funding to promising innovative businesses like smith electric. and because we did, theres a thriving enterprise here instead of an empty, darkened warehouse. because of the grant that went to this company, we can hear the sounds of machines humming and people doing their work i...