EVI Gets California Funding

In a world where the electric vehicles would have never made it without the substantial support of the money provided by the governments of the world, securing funding is essential for the companies that have ventured into manufacturing these types of cars.

Smaller companies, like Electric Vehicles International (EVI), the group behind walk-in electric vans (WI), rely heavily on the money of the governments or local authorities. Money that is sure to come, provided the product you offer and the business plan for it have chances of success.

EVI product, already deployed for testing with UPS, has managed to impress the California Energy Commission, who awarded EVI a $3.9 million grant. EVI says it will use the money to upgrade its primary manufacturing facility in the US.

“Through A.B. 118, the California Energy Commission is funding this grant to EVI, creating 50 new living-wage clean energy jobs,” said Jim Boyd, from the California Energy Commission.

“This grant is intended to help EVI modernize and transform the medium and heavy-duty electric vehicle manufacturing industry, making clean, electric vehicles more accessible and affordable, and facilitating a widespread transition from diesel engines to zero-emission vehicles to meet California’s progressive economic and environmental goals.”

The EVI-WI, as the electric vans are called, are built on the chassis of the Freightliner Custom Chassis Corporation glider and are wrapped in a Utilimaster body. The batteries fitted on the van give it an operating range of 90 miles (144 km) and a top speed of 60 mph (96 km/h). The GVWs range from class 4 to class 6.