NEW YORK CITY-The latest in electric car technology will not be coming out of Silicon Valley, Detroit or Cleveland--in fact, it will be localized right here in the Bronx. Smith Electric Vehicles, a Kansas City, MO-based auto manufacturer, will develop a 90,000-square-foot assembly plant for electric commercial vehicles in the South Bronx, making it the first clean-tech manufacturing site of its kind in the borough.

City and state officials gathered at the Bronx County Courthouse on Tuesday morning to welcome the company to the borough, which plans to create--and retain--more than 100 jobs here. “This is a big deal,” said Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr., who described the development as part of the “master plan” for the future of the Bronx. “We are bringing businesses to the borough, and in this case, it is not any old business,” he said. “We are creating good-paying jobs and protecting the environment.”

Smith will build-out the manufacturing plant inside the former Murray Feiss building near Hunts Point, where it will manufacture the Newton, a zero-emission all-electric commercial vehicle that delivers a market-leading range, a payload of more than 16,000 pounds and an average annual operating cost that is one-third to one-half that of conventional diesel vehicles.