Believe it or not, but Detroit Electric is still alive and kicking. I won’t hate on anyone thinking otherwise because even I thought the company had long hit the dirt. But it’s apparently not true. The company is headed to the Cenex Low Carbon Vehicles event in the U.K. next week and it’s bringing an announcement of some kind that points towards its future as an EV company. This should be interesting.

The company was coy on details when it announced its intentions, but it seems that it’s now on a far better financial footing than where it was in the past. At least that’s the picture Chief Technical Officer and Company Director, Richie Frost, tried to paint when he said that the company has “secured the solid financial foundation to embark on our business plan.” More to that, Frost added that the company is actually embarking on a major recruiting drive with plans to fill its ranks with anywhere from 150 to 200 new employees. For sure, it’s a revealing development that puts to light a different perspective on what the company’s status is at the moment and moving forward. Whether this new-found optimism lasts is an entirely different matter. After all, this is the same company that promised to launch the SP:01 electric sports car three years ago and then added an electric SUV and an electric sedan to its plans two years ago. Nothing’s come out of it so it’s going to be interesting to see if the “solid financial foundation” Frost is talking about has legitimate legs to it.

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Let’s hope for concrete good news this time

I’ll never begrudge a company for continuing to plug away at the business no matter what kind of odds are stacked against it. That’s a big reason why, even with a little skepticism thrown in, I’m still rooting for Detroit Electric to achieve the goals it set out when it returned to the scene in 2013 after 71 years of inactivity.

That doesn’t mean that I’ve been realistically onboard with its ambitions because it’s difficult enough to break into the industry as an upstart car brand, it’s even more difficult if you actually have a legacy to fall back on, except that very few people are probably still around to remember that legacy.

The good news is that the company now has the financial backing of a Chinese company – Far East Smarter Energy Group – that reportedly invested $1.8 billion in capital into the company six months ago. That’s an impressive sum, though I don’t think that’s the actual figure that was included in the transaction since most of these press release numbers are traditionally bloated to look more impressive. Still, I’m hoping that Detroit Electric puts the money – however much it is – to good use. It still has a long way to go to live up to its goal of introducing the family of electric cars it’s long promised. At the very least, whatever announcement it has planned for the show it’s attending next week should clear up the company’s state of affairs moving forward.

Just don’t make promises you likely can’t keep anymore, Detroit Electric. Remember that plan to sell 100,000 electric vehicles annually by 2020? Yeah, it sounded ridiculous when you first said it. Imagine what it sounds like now.

Sp:01 Promotional Video

References

Detroit Electric SP:01

Read our full review on the Detroit Electric SP:01.