Way back in January, rumors began swirling regarding a potential tie-up between Chrysler's GEM and India's Tata Motors. The rumored love-child was an electric version of the delivery truck known in India as the Tata Ace. Now, we have a potential price for the unit, and it sounds almost too good to be true. According to Auto Observer, the electric Ace could sell for as little as $5,000 and would meet all necessary safety regulations in the United States. We'd imagine that this vehicle would be classified as a NEV, which would limit it to twenty-five miles per hour and operation on streets with a speed limit of 35 miles per hour or less.

No details are available regarding what kind of batteries or range are available. We can see a small delivery vehicle which uses no gasoline going over rather well in dense urban areas. Sales possibilities exist in both the U.S. market as well as in India.

[Source: Auto Observer]

The Royal Mail, Britain's post office has ordered a pair of electric vans from Smith Electric Vehicles for testing purposes. They will be receiving one Edison, which is based on the Ford Transit van, and a 7.5 tonne Newton, which is a larger cab-over truck. Both trucks use the Zebra sodium nickel chloride batteries and have a rated range of 150 and 130 miles respectively. The Royal Mail currently has over 33,000 commercial delivery vehicles including 10,700 3.5 tonne vans like the Edison and 2,500 of the larger trucks.

If the trials work out and most of the current fleet are replaced by electric vehicles, it could have a significant environmental impact. Many of the trucks used for inter-city deliveries won't be able to be supplanted by pure EVs but some type of range extender setup with an on-board generator could definitely work.

[Source: Smith Electric Vehicles]