The C-E-O of an Ames company that’s managing the assembly and sale of electric vehicles says the company’s station wagons, trucks and cargo vans are “full-size” and can go fast enough to break the posted speed limits on the state’s highways.

EnVision Motor Company announced today that it will ship electric vehicles assembled at a facility in New York to a plant in Webster City. Workers in Webster City will finish the vehicles by installing the electric drive train.  EnVision president and C.E.O. Thomas Gleisner says these electric vehicles can reach a top speed of about 85 miles an hour.

“They’re long-range, highway-speed, full-size, fully-crash-tested vehicles,” he says.  “Just like any other car, they just don’t burn gas.”

These Electric Mobile Cars — EMC’s — can go about 200 miles on a charge, depending on how fast you drive, how much weight the vehicle is carrying and how much the vehicle has to battle wind friction.

“Most people drive an average of 36 miles a day,” Gleisner says.  “If our car achieves a 200-mile range, the majority of drivers can go anywhere he or she wants to go.”

Gleisner’s company, EnVision, is the U.S. distributor of these European-designed vehicles. The completed vehicle will roll off the assembly line at Auto Manufacturing Systems in Webster City, an already-existing plant.

“Webster City seems like it’s the community that can make about anything,” Gleisner says.  “The manufacturing base there has a proven track record of making quality goods and having a great workforce and I just think that it’s the perfect spot to do the assembly on our vehicles and then to add the manufacturing for any accessories or toppers for our trucks or bike racks or anything that would go along with our vehicles.” 

More than 300 workers will be added at the plant to work on the assembly of the vehicles, a welcome employment boost in Webster City as 850 workers will lose their jobs when the Electrox plant shuts down next year.

An Ames company plans to open a plant in Webster City, employing 300 or more people to assemble electric vehicles. 

Officials of EnVision Motor Company say the plan is to produce up to 2500 electric vehicles at a new assembly plant on the east side of Webster City. EnVision was formed to combine foreign made car bodies with American made electrical parts. The vehicles are designed to get more than 200 miles on a single battery charge.

The electric cars are expected to sell for between $32,000 and $37,000. 

The new Webster City assembly plant is scheduled to produce 50 cars a week for the first three months. The cars will be sent to a nationwide network of roughly 200 dealers, including one to be located in Des Moines. 

EnVision Motor Company president and CEO Thomas Gleisner calls the vehicles the “first-family” of high-speed, 100 percent electric vehicles.  Gleisner recorded a brief video on the company’s website. ”Drive green.  Drive clean,” Gleisner said, reciting a company slogan.

The news by EnVision is a welcome one to the Webster City area. Last October, Electrolux executives announced they would close the washer and dryer plant in Webster City early next year, shifting  production to Juarez, Mexico.  About 850 people will lose their jobs.

(Reporting by Pat Powers, KQWC, Webster City)