The company claiming to give us the world's fastest electric sports car also says they will hire eighty people by the first quarter of 2015. Hmmm... I wonder why we're skeptical. It's a mystery.
While earlier reports said Detroit Electric is moving to the Netherlands, that's only half true as they say the sales and marketing for Europe, the Middle-East and Africa will indeed be handled on the Dutch side, but that production ended up in Leamington Spa in England, a town that might be familiar for having another automotive company around, Ricardo. You know, the guys who designed the Veyron's double-clutch gearbox, or McLaren's 3.8 twin-turbo V8.
Impressive neighborhood, than, let's just hope Detroit Electric can benefit from such a healthy atmosphere.
They say their first product, the SP:01 EV is "currently undergoing engineering sign-off tests, and the final styling of the car will be revealed in the coming weeks." They also plan on building an electric 2+2 supercar and a sedan they say will be engineered, developed and assembled at a planned facility in Michigan.
That's interesting because as I said earlier, their global headquarters on the 18th floor of the Fisher building was totally empty last November. Extended holidays I guess.
But there's a reasonable explanation for everything. Albert Lam, Chairman and CEO of Detroit Electric had this to say:
We're truly delighted that we're just weeks away from bringing to fruition our plans to introduce Detroit Electric's first pure electric sports car. With a new production facility in the UK, a magnificent EMEA headquarters in The Netherlands and plans to engineer and assemble vehicles in the USA, the world will soon be able to experience the pure electric performance of our range of exciting and innovative Detroit Electric vehicles.
While Detroit was our preferred initial assembly location, the regulatory process for the production and sale of the SP:01 in the US has taken longer then expected. That means the assembly operations have to be located in Europe to allow us to bring the vehicle to market globally in line with our timing plans. We're growing our team at the company's headquarters in Detroit and we are committed to bringing investment and jobs to the Detroit economic area in the very near future.
I guess we'll just have to wait and see.