13 May 2008 

The Tanfield Group Plc

("Tanfield" or "the Group")

SMITH ELECTRIC VEHICLES - ORDER BOOK DETAILS 

Tanfield, the leading manufacturer of zero emission electric vehicles, is today able to release details of part of its existing order book following an event held yesterday by one of its customers. TNT has publicly announced that in addition to the 50 vehicles ordered last year, it has ordered a further 100 vehicles from Smith, 50 of which will be destined for the UK market and 50 of which will broaden the roll-out of the Smith vehicles in mainland Europe.  

This order constitutes the largest single order ever received by Smith to date, and was included in the recent order book announcement stated at the Group's preliminary results on 22 April.

TNT is a European market leader in global express, logistics and international mail services and has a fleet of 45,000 vehicles across Europe of which 3,500 is the UK vehicle fleet. 

Darren Kell, Chief Executive of The Tanfield Group Plc, said: 

"We're delighted by the strength of our continuing relationship with TNT, who have been a great customer and partner of Smith Electric Vehicles. Following the clear operational success of our vehicles with the TNT fleet, we were able to secure this very significant order from a major operator. The continued roll-out of our vehicles into mainland Europe bodes extremely well for further opportunities in these markets"

For further information:

website: www.tanfieldgroup.co.uk  

Notes to editors

The Tanfield Group Plc is the world's leading developer and manufacturer of road-going commercial electric vehicles and aerial work platforms. Tanfield is headquartered in Washington, Tyne & Wear, with operations in Europe, Scandinavia, North America, the Middle East, Asia-Pacific and Africa. It has two main divisions: 

Smith Electric Vehicles, was founded in 1920 and acquired by Tanfield in October 2004. Following its acquisition, Smith is developing into a world leader in new technology electric vans and trucks with greatly enhanced performance, speed and range capabilities. This makes them attractive for all fleet operators in large towns, cities and closed industrial environments. For the first time, these fleet operators have economically viable, zero emission alternatives to using diesel vans and trucks. Smith has an unrivalled UK-wide service and support network, which already maintains over 5,000 vehicles for major fleet operators. Smith's airport offering is complemented by two specialist airport vehicle sub-divisions; Jumbotugs and Norquip. 

www.smithelectricvehicles.com

Powered Access, contains two of the world's most established aerial work platform brands, UpRight Powered Access and Snorkel International. UpRight is the UK's biggest manufacturer of self-propelled aerial work platforms (also known as "cherry-pickers", "mobile elevating work platforms", "aerial lifts", etc). UpRight has assembly facilities in the UK and USA, with products sold through a strong network of over 200 independent, full-service distributors across Europe, Scandinavia, the Middle East and Asia-Pacific regions. Snorkel, acquired in August 2007, has significant manufacturing capabilities along with strong sales and distribution, in North America and Australasia. Tanfield has successfully extended its powered access product range and is now one of only three "full line" aerial lift manufacturers to have a significant global footprint in both the North America and EMEA regions, in what is a $7bn market.

www.upright.com / www.snorkelusa.com

- ENDS -