The Virginian-Pilot
©
NORFOLK
With plans to capitalize on the growth of the electric automobile market, a firm has built an all-electric utility truck and wants to begin manufacturing and selling the vehicle by next year.
Viridian Motor Corp. was founded three years ago by several area businessmen and has built five prototypes of its utility truck. The "Work Ready" truck is designed primarily for agricultural uses, said Terry Langhorne, the company's president. The vehicle also could be used by businesses ranging from apartment complexes to golf courses, he said.
While plans for the truck have been in the works for seven years, the company unveiled one of its prototypes to the public Wednesday night outside of the Naro Expanded Cinema, which was showing the documentary "Revenge of the Electric Car."
The all-electric utility truck has a price of $13,500 and a maximum speed of 25 miles per hour, which Langhorne said makes it ideal for use around a farm or golf course. And compared with other utility vehicles, it's cost-effective, he said.
"It costs approximately 2 cents a mile to charge the vehicle."
The company has a contract with a Chinese firm to manufacture many of the components for the trucks, he said, and plans to import those parts and assemble the vehicles from other parts made in the United States.
Langhorne, a 64-year-old Virginia Beach native, retired a few years ago from the construction industry. He said his passion for automobiles came from years of tinkering with muscle cars.
Viridian Motor has leased about 25,000 square feet in a warehouse on Azalea Garden Road, where the company employs four people. Langhorne said the firm hopes to hire dozens of workers next year as it ramps up production of the truck. The company hopes to build between 25 and 50 of the trucks beginning in February, he said.
Josh Brown, (757) 446-2318, josh.brown@pilotonline.com
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THUMBS UP!
Someone building something new instead of trying to tear things down!
In new development, any step one might lead to any other step 1000.
Keep it up!
Kudos to Terry for attempting to address the negative comments. The fact is that we’re a globalized society now and as nice as it would be to assemble a product entirely out of American parts, it’s simply impractical.
Be happy that they didn’t decide to have the entire truck manufactured in China and chose instead to keep as much of the wealth in Hampton Roads as possible.
Area businessmen try to create a new company, a new product, and create JOBS in our area, and all people can do is gripe about China and unions? If anyone out there thinks they can do the job better should get out there and just do it already.
Continued Response Negative Comments
"The company has a contract with a Chinese firm to manufacture many of the components for the trucks, he said, and plans to import those parts and assemble the vehicles from other parts made in the United States".
Continued Response Negative Comments
Parts for the WR Series Truck made in the United States are as follows, The Electric AC Motor,controller, contactor, wiring harness, seats, transaxle rear end, fuse links, tires, brake lines, interior sheet metal components, steel chassis modifications, 12v battery system, throttle plates, gauges and dashboard switch assemblies. Then the hard task begins of putting everything together. We also purchase aluminum bed components overseas and fabricate them in the United States. The total cost of overseas (China) parts is less than between 15 and 20% of the sales prices. Unfortunately, the article minimizes the number of US-procured components in the sentence, CONTINUED RESPONSE
computers
maybe all comments coming in from chinese component part computers should stop commenting and assuming things from just this one artical and give this product a chance to employ some local people who need jobs.
Forget it
Many better products out there that cost less, have more capacity and go faster. The last thing we need is another product with Chinese parts: we've had too many bad experiences with their materials and other items made there. I agree with another poster: natural gas powered vehicles are the way to go. This one is DOA.
Comments on Negative Information
It is a reasonable question to ask why Chinese-based manufacturing is being used at all when it is certainly possible to manufacture all the necessary components within the United States. The decision to use Chinese manufacturing facilities for some vehicle components is a business strategy that involves calculations of tradeoffs in a number of areas. to support our core goal of producing affordable vehicles within a certain desired performance profile while employing the largest number of US works as possible during our initial production run, the decision was made to leverage the lower overall manufacturing cost chassis (Modified in US) and cabin with minor components buy importing these parts form China.
TO BE CONTINUED
Response to negative comments
As the president of Viridian Motor Corporation, I would like to address some of the negative comments that have been posted about the WR (Work-Ready) Electric Truck lines in response to the pilotonline.com article entitled "Norfolk company plans to sell electric trucks"(http://hamptonroads.com/2011/12/norfolk-company-plans-sell electric-trucks).
First, many of the comments center on the fact this a Chinese-made vehicle. This an inaccurate statement as many of the components for the truck are manufactured in the United Stares and as the trucks themselves are assemble in the United States. It is true that the chassis and cabin are manufactured in China and are shipped to our assembly facility in Norfolk, VA, CONTINUED COMMENTS
Electric Truck
Sell them to China since many of the components will be made by them.
Dude, you need to take these to The Villages, Florida
Golf course community. The old people down there will buy them and trick them out like F-150s.