Detroit Electric moving SP:01 EV production to Holland

Filed under: EV/Plug-in, Manufacturing/Plants

The plans that the revived Detroit Electric company made headlines with when it announced the all-electric SP:01 sports car were, at best, optimistic. To go from concept to starting production in half a year was always a going to be a challenging proposition, so we were hardly surprised when it was recently discovered that the company's offices in the Fisher Building are tumbleweed-empty and that it is not on track to build cars in the Detroit area. But we were caught a bit off guard with the just-announced change of plans, which will see the company step away from its Motor City namesake to build cars in Holland. According to a report by The Detroit News, the company still hopes to make cars in Michigan someday, just not right now.

The timeline has also been pushed back. Instead of the promised August start date, the Dutch plant is now supposed to start building the SP:01 in the fourth quarter. In a statement to the newspaper, Detroit Electric CEO Albert Lam said, "We are Detroit Electric, not London Electric. Our commitment to the city of Detroit, the state of Michigan and the United States is as strong as it ever was. While there have been some delays in our plan to start production in Detroit, many vehicle programs experience some form of delay." Despite this prominent delay, the company's website still promises it will have "two other high-performance models" in production "by the end of 2014." We'll see.

Detroit Electric moving SP:01 EV production to Holland originally appeared on Autoblog Green on Fri, 30 Aug 2013 15:28:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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