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Published on July 29th, 2009 | by Susan Kraemer

9

Smith Electric Vehicles Goes to Washington

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Smith Electric Vehicles made its much heralded first U.S. Smith Newton electric vehicle deliveries to lucky Coca Cola and PG&E today.

But it delivered them on The Mall in hopes of snagging some attention from lawmakers on the Hill. In this debut it was following the example of Plug-In America that got some great EV legislation passed by publicizing to the Senate just what electric vehicles can do for America.

No such luck for them today, but, if it hadn’t been for Plug-In America and its ubiquitous white converted Prius with the 100+miles per gallon sign trolling the Mall in previous years, Smith Electric Vehicles might not be delivering its gigantic electric delivery trucks in the U.S. today.

The electric vehicle subsidies that passed as a result is what paved the way for EV companies like Smith to come to America and bring us electric delivery trucks like they have in the developed world.

The resistance to passing green legislation in Washington comes from the Republican side of the Senate.

Yet Smith managed to get a Republican to not just announce today’s electric vehicle delivery but to actually reference global warming without sniggering:

“Smith Electric Vehicles U.S. is responding to America’s challenge in the battle to wean itself from foreign oil and reduce greenhouse gas emissions” said Senator Kit Bond of Missouri, who has a long Republican record of voting against all the renewable energy and climate change prevention bills that encourage sensible solutions like electric vehicles.

“I am particularly proud of the role my home state of Missouri is playing in this vision for a clean energy future.”



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About the Author

writes at CleanTechnica, CSP-Today, PV-Insider , SmartGridUpdate, and GreenProphet. She has also been published at Ecoseed, NRDC OnEarth, MatterNetwork, Celsius, EnergyNow, and Scientific American. As a former serial entrepreneur in product design, Susan brings an innovator's perspective on inventing a carbon-constrained civilization: If necessity is the mother of invention, solving climate change is the mother of all necessities! As a lover of history and sci-fi, she enjoys chronicling the strange future we are creating in these interesting times.    Follow Susan on Twitter @dotcommodity.


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  • Constantin

    “I am particularly proud of the role my home state of Missouri is playing in this vision for a clean energy future.” Yes sure an lets forget about the Republican role of voting against Ev’s and Solar and so on !

    EV RULES ! DOWN WITH THE OIL LOBBY ! EV + SOLAR = FREEDOM !

  • Constantin

    “I am particularly proud of the role my home state of Missouri is playing in this vision for a clean energy future.” Yes sure an lets forget about the Republican role of voting against Ev’s and Solar and so on !

    EV RULES ! DOWN WITH THE OIL LOBBY ! EV + SOLAR = FREEDOM !

  • Mr. Sinister

    I opened this article to read about the Smith electric vehicle … it’s unfortunate that I also had to read through your ridiculous partisan ranting in order to get to the details.

    Republicans are not against environmental stewardship. What they are against is taxing U.S. businesses into bankruptcy in order to fund government handouts to every “green” start-up that comes begging. Or paying for half of the installation cost to everyone who wants to plop a solar array on their roof. Republicans believe in the ability of the consumer and the free market to determine which companies and technologies will succeed and which will fail. They believe that the consumer is the best person to spend his or her hard-earned dollar … not the government.

  • Mr. Sinister

    I opened this article to read about the Smith electric vehicle … it’s unfortunate that I also had to read through your ridiculous partisan ranting in order to get to the details.

    Republicans are not against environmental stewardship. What they are against is taxing U.S. businesses into bankruptcy in order to fund government handouts to every “green” start-up that comes begging. Or paying for half of the installation cost to everyone who wants to plop a solar array on their roof. Republicans believe in the ability of the consumer and the free market to determine which companies and technologies will succeed and which will fail. They believe that the consumer is the best person to spend his or her hard-earned dollar … not the government.

  • Mr. Sinister

    I opened this article to read about the Smith electric vehicle … it’s unfortunate that I also had to read through your ridiculous partisan ranting in order to get to the details.

    Republicans are not against environmental stewardship. What they are against is taxing U.S. businesses into bankruptcy in order to fund government handouts to every “green” start-up that comes begging. Or paying for half of the installation cost to everyone who wants to plop a solar array on their roof. Republicans believe in the ability of the consumer and the free market to determine which companies and technologies will succeed and which will fail. They believe that the consumer is the best person to spend his or her hard-earned dollar … not the government.

  • http://greenoptions.com/author/susan Susan Kraemer

    @ mr sinister: Sadly, Republicans in the Senate do have a consistent history of votes against the environment, so you need to let your Senator know if you are a pro-environment Republican – that they need to change.

    All 50 roll call votes on environment and renewable energy back to 1983 are linked to the roll call votes, so you can check my claim yourself:

    http://www.matternetwork.com/2008/9/mccains-50-votes-against-clean.cfm

    Hope you enjoy driving home today on the highway system that government built by seeing the future need for it. Do I understand your great grandfather paid for the road you drive on singlehandedly with his hard earned dollars? Of course not.

    In the same way, we now need to agree on some collective spending on our future common good – by switching to new energy sources – so your great great grandchildren can enjoy their hard earned dollars as you do now.

    Otherwise, things look very grim for them.

  • http://greenoptions.com/author/susan Susan Kraemer

    @ mr sinister: Sadly, Republicans in the Senate do have a consistent history of votes against the environment, so you need to let your Senator know if you are a pro-environment Republican – that they need to change.

    All 50 roll call votes on environment and renewable energy back to 1983 are linked to the roll call votes, so you can check my claim yourself:

    http://www.matternetwork.com/2008/9/mccains-50-votes-against-clean.cfm

    Hope you enjoy driving home today on the highway system that government built by seeing the future need for it. Do I understand your great grandfather paid for the road you drive on singlehandedly with his hard earned dollars? Of course not.

    In the same way, we now need to agree on some collective spending on our future common good – by switching to new energy sources – so your great great grandchildren can enjoy their hard earned dollars as you do now.

    Otherwise, things look very grim for them.

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