Smith Electric Vehicles is providing 10 Edison vans for a new project aiming to shape Germany’s low carbon future.

Smith is supplying the vans to Ford of Europe, which is a partner in the colognE-mobil project in Cologne.

The first phase of the project will examine the potential benefits of electric commercial vehicles in Cologne, then forecast how they could impact on Germany’s plans to deploy one million zero emission vehicles by 2020.

The Smith Edison is a pure electric version of the Ford Transit van that is powered by lithium-ion batteries.

Designed for urban operations, the vehicle delivers a range of up to 100 miles on a full charge and a top speed of 50mph.

For this project, Smith will build seven Edison panel vans for delivery service companies, two Edison minibuses for passenger shuttle services and one Edison chassis cab for municipal use in the City of Cologne.