Electric vehicle firm gets NY incentives

A Kansas City, Mo., company plans to start building its commercial electric truck, dubbed the Newton, in the Bronx next year.

The company, Smith Electric Vehicles, is getting a New York City and state incentive package valued by state officials at $6.6 million or more, and promised to create about 100 jobs over the next eight years -- a small green shoot in a city that has lost 188,000 manufacturing jobs since 1990.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo's office announced Tuesday Smith will make the chassis and cabs in a leased 90,000-square-foot building near Hunts Point, which it will renovate and equip. Other companies will produce and mount whatever type body the customer wants to the chassis.

The incentives include $3.4 million in tax credits from Empire State Development Corp., a state agency, $1.5 million from the state Energy Research and Development Authority and $1.7 million in tax exemptions from the city's Industrial Development Agency. Cuomo's announcement said there might also be electric rate subsidies from the New York Power Authority and training aid from the state Department of Labor. A state spokesman said there could be additional funds from the energy research authority.

Smith estimates the package at $11 million including additional incentives from the city and the value of the labor department's training assistance.

Manufacturing jobs in New York City fell from more than 265,000 in 1990 to 76,500 last year and have continued to decline this year, according to state labor department figures. In September they accounted for 73,000 of a total of 3.7 million jobs in the five boroughs, the department said.

The Newton costs between $100,000 to $150,000, depending on the capacity of the battery selected by the customer, and has a range of between 50 and 150 miles between rechargings.

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Smith says customers for its electric vehicles include PepsiCo's Frito-Lay division, Coca-Cola, DHL, FedEx and the U.S. military. It is descended from a British company founded in the 1920s. On Nov. 10 it announced plans for its initial public stock offering but didn't disclose the date of sale or the asking price.

Tuesday's announcement didn't indicate the Bronx plant's production capacity, but in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing for the stock sale, the company said it sold 320 vehicles in the 12 months ended Sept. 30, and that its Kansas City plant, a model for the Bronx facility, can produce 100 vehicles per month. In its IPO filing the company said it had "written indications of interest" for about 2,220 vehicles through 2015.

Smith lost $21.3 million on revenues of $39.6 million in the six months through June 30, according to the filing, which cautioned, "We have had a history of losses, and we may be unable to achieve or sustain profitability."