Detroit Electric Forms JV, Aims to Launch EV in 2018

Netherlands-based Detroit Electric Holdings Ltd. and China’s Far East Smarter Energy Group have agreed to form a joint venture to launch three electric vehicles by 2020.

The partners committed to invest a combined $1.8 billion dollars in coming years, including $370 million that will be used to finalize Detroit Electric’s SP:01 electric sports car and launch production at the company’s facility in Leamington Spa, U.K.. A new facility in Leamington also is planned that will house a research and development center and additional assembly capabilities.

Series production of the SP:01, which is based on the Lotus Elise, is due to start later this year. This will be followed in late 2018 by an all-electric SUV and an unspecified third model in 2020, Detroit Electric says. The ambitious plan calls for annual sales volumes reaching 100,000 units worldwide by 2020.

Detroit Electric dropped plans to launch the SP:01 in 2014 after unveiling a prototype a year earlier. The company was formed in 2008 by former Albert Lam, who previously headed Lotus Engineering, and began testing its own electric powertrain in a modified Elise at that time. The original Michigan-based Detroit Electric company sold about 13,000 EVs from 1907 until it went out of business in 1939.