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"Bryan Hansel, chief executive of Smith Electric Vehicles in Kansas City, Mo., said he opened a U.S. branch of the United Kingdom-based company two years ago and this year acquired its European assets. Hundreds of its zero-emission electric trucks are on the road. One of its biggest customers is Frito-Lay, which uses the Smith trucks to deliver chips and other food products. Hansel figures that the medium-duty electric trucks his company makes in the United States could grow to account for half of that truck market in 10 years. His company won a $32 million grant last year from the Department of Energy to build a 510-vehicle demonstration fleet for commercial customers. "We really feel that the market is at a tipping point," Hansel said." Read more: http://www.vcstar.com/news/2011/mar/23/jumpstarting-electric-car/#ixzz1HW5b0zX5
With all these ups and downs you must own half the company by know?
http://epoverviews.com/articles/visitor.php?keyword=Smith%20Electric%20Vehicles
Sorry I meant hasn't cornered
Japan has cornered the market (about 20% more or less) at all in this respect and there will be alternatives such as China and Taiwan IMHO DYOR
Actually this disaster presents a very real problem for SEV, both the motor control and battery charging is done by electronics, supplies of components are already being hit for who knows how long?
media is amazing at hype..watching Bloomberg today they had an expert talking about the Japanese possible contamination as being very low and being a minor disaster. Can you believe they cut him short and went off to talk about the Basketball??? Typical example..
Perhaps not the time to say it, but Snorkel could be net beneficiaries out of this tragedy. The reconstruction will provide massive opportunities for construction equipment manufacturers. Looks like the nuclear situation is slowly coming under control, listening to the ‘real experts’ it sounds like the media have been hyping up the doom and gloom as usual. What amazes me, after what effectively has been a perfect storm scenario, 6th worst recoded earthquake plus huge tsunami the amount of radiation loss is negligible. A true tribute to Japanese engineers.
I cannot blame the cautious where there is a real threat. Not here though.. where is the threat, is the factory in Japan ? Is their prime market Japan ? Is their bank Japanese ? No to the above. This is dump of shares to trigger a herd panic, shame I say. Some out there are already making their money on the backs of the people in Eastern Japan.
Myo, the sad thing is that people are using the problems in Japan as an excuse to dump shares and drive the market lower to stock up. The FTSE is almost 200 points down on what?? A shame a real shame. You can see why some folk hate capitalism so much- there are those who see world problems as a money spinner. This SP will bounce back to mid 40's within two weeks if not sooner and some people will have a nice smile on their faces.
Sometimes I find it staggering how little the fundamentals can matter and politics and speculation can rule the day. I am hold on Tan for the long term or at least till they IPO!
It's surprising given that it now values Tanfield itself at -£4m. Just profit takers, but they never seem to get the hang of fundamentals. Factory announcements should perk things up again. Just shows how efficient the markets really are.
I am not particularly bothered by this drop, a bit of speculative selling on the back of Japanese problems and maybe a tree shake. It is clear the real value of the company is many millions higher then the SP. No luck needed on this one.
Can anyone comment on whether they see the declines in the last few days as fundamental or just temporary and the reasoning behind them? Is it just the usual panic or something more serious?
The stake we hold in SEV is worth £36.3m by my maths. We're worth £32.9m. Can someone explain that to me?
Snippet on Snorkel at the Rental Showf from the the March 2011 edition of 'Cranes & Access' ... page 48. "Snorkel had no new products on display – it is saving them for Conexpo – but had a substantial stand with both Snorkel and Pop-Up branded products on show. It says that the first two months of 2011 have been extremely positive with order intake up substantially on last year and as a result is recruiting again. The Pop-Up range has been present on the US market for 12 months now, but the company confirmed that the going is slow.However with more companies offering similar products, that may be set to change - its all down to economics and return on investment." http://www.vertikal.net/fileadmin/journals/ca/2011/ca13-2.pdf As ever thanks to 'totally banjo' on Advfn
http://gigaom.com/cleantech/tale-of-two-electric-truck-makers-smith-and-modec/
We're perilously closed to be at a valuation less than our stake in SEV. By my maths it is worth £36.3m so Tanfield itself is now valued at £0.86m. I wonder if we'll fall below any time soon, because we're getting close. That has to give a bit of optimism!
It appears that they have no problem raising money privately for expansion so perhaps they won't need an IPO just yet. Your point regarding having a number of profitable plants up and running before going for an IPO may be right. Interesting times ahead.
Thanks for that, I thought as much unless they are good at hiding another one, but it's best to check. Logically having raised $50m privately, surely they'd wait till they have tangible results before an IPO to minimise dilution. If it was in the summer I wouldn't be as happy as if it waiting till at least 2012. It would be great to just set up the first plants to show how profitable they can be and then say, we have profitable factories would you like to help us build more? Perhaps that was the plan if we gave up our stake as planned?
Rob I'm only aware of 1 plant in the states and I can't ever relocate any mention of a 2nd, also I’m sure they intend the IPO take place this year possibly in the summer. I think there was some talk of it being announced in April but can't confirm that.
Just going through the news stories and here are a few points of interest: "The idea, Hansel explained, is to create one nimble electric truck maker that can reach a global market." "At this point, Hansel said Smith sees about 20 markets in the U.S. “that justify a facility.” While Smith currently assembles only about eight trucks per month at its Kansas City site, according to the Washington Business Journal, and “plans to double that in coming months,” future projects in Smith’s network are envisioned as 50,000-square foot facilities that produce about 100 trucks per month. That size and run rate, according to Hansel, can be “very profitable” for Smith." "He said the company has identified the top 10 markets for its vehicles, and by the end of April expects to select the top two — based on factors including infrastructure and support from local economic development initiatives and incentives." "Hansel said Smith is on track to become, “a sustainable business without subsidies” by January 2011. By then, Hansel said he wants to be able to “look a fleet in the eye,” and make the case for electric trucks with the simple fact that, “you’re makin’ money, I’m makin’ money.”" http://gigaom.com/cleantech/smith-electric-vehicles-eyes-road-to-an-ipo/ March 14th 2010 (last years perspective).
I apologise for this question because I've focused solely on future strategy, but could anyone clarify our current position. Am I right in saying SEV have 1 plant in the US and 1 in the UK currently in terms of manufacturing? I'm sure I heard someone mention a second in the US, but I can't find it. Incidentally SEV gets some great press over there: Forbes, Wall Street Journal: http://www.smithelectric.com/eventsAndNews.aspx?pageno=1
What we know: http://www.fouryearsgo.org/2011/03/04/feature/smith-electric-vehicles-4-year-goal/ "Hansel tells of how the FOUR YEARS. GO. timeline has stretched his company’s thinking about how to accelerate a shift from diesel to electric-powered vehicles. Inspired by the 4-year timeline, Smith Electric intends to put 100,000 electric trucks on the road in 4 years. This is 10% of the national objective recently announced by President Obama – to produce 1 million electric vehicles over the next 4 years." We can do 1,200 trucks per shift per plant per year I believe (king of green radio interview). So by the 4th year we need 42 plants on two shifts. Now factory set up costs we debated before and the consensus was that you could probably set up factories on lease terms at about £5m a pot plus enough working capital to see you through to profitability. I'd say we're setting up at least 10 plants or so in 2011, attempting to profit in 2012 and early 2013, launching an IPO in 2013 and setting up the rest of the factories by the end of 2014. It's the only strategy that fits the numbers. What should be realised is that the company is thinking big. 42 plants suggests that they are going to set up a base in Europe as well using SEVUK.
I suspect they may not be a listing on the NASDAQ and quite honestly I am happy with that. They have raised sufficient capital already. The money should easily fund at least two more assembly plants and leave plenty of change. Without a public listing, Tan own 33% of a company which will soon have a huge revenue stream. Lets say they produce 1000 trucks at 80k each. That is $80m in revenue in the states alone. Assuming a 10% profit margin that is $8m in profit from the USA alone based on conservative short term numbers. Nice.