Manganese Bronze, one of the main manufacturers of London black cabs, has signed an agreement with electric vehicle maker Tanfield to make battery powered taxis that should hit the streets by mid 2009.

and still dropping like a brick...50p now.

MY GOD NOW. BELOW 50P

MY TIP FOR 2009.

RESULTS 5 MAR 09.www.manganese.com

TIMETOBY.

ITS ON THE MOVE.

100p is on its way.

OVER 100p NOW.

OVER 115p

over 125p

OVER 150p.

OVER 165p

OVER 170p

UPDATE OVER 200p

Proposed placing of up to 5,347,593 new ordinary shares at 187 pence per share.MNGS.LN said it might be forced to leave the London Stock Exchange because it expects more of its business to come from its Chinese joint venture. So why the placing.?

Hello ????

As far as the Electric taxis are concerned, I recently spoke to a representative of Manganeze Bronze who told me that "this project is ongoing and I believe we are still trying to obtain funding".
"thanks to kimoldfield."

Just for you Steff ;o)


RNS Number : 3923U
Tanfield Group PLC
24 June 2009



Tanfield Group plc ('Tanfield' or the 'Company')

24 June 2009


Electric Passenger Vehicle Development & Trial

Tanfield is pleased to announce that it is part of a successful consortium bid to develop electric passenger vehicles.

The Company will be eligible to receive 1.6m in Government funding towards a total project cost of 3.2m to develop and trial a total of 16 vehicles as part of the Ultra Low Carbon Vehicle Demonstrator Programme - a scheme funded and administered by the Government's Technology Strategy Board.

Building on its Ford relationship, Tanfield will develop five people carriers, based on the Ford Connect Tourneo platform, (as shown in conceptual form on Ford's stand at the 2009 Geneva motor show), and one executive minibus, based on the already established Ford Transit chassis. In addition Tanfield will deliver 10 electric taxis, through its collaboration with Manganese Bronze Holdings PLC.

Darren Kell, CEO of Tanfield, said: 'This funding will support our plans to transfer leading edge electric vehicle technology from our vans and trucks into passenger vehicles.

'This project opens up a raft of exciting possibilities for us. Tanfield is already acknowledged as the leader in electric vehicles that move goods; this enables us to address the market for electric vehicles that move people.'

Manganese Bronze runs into deeper losses


Manganese Bronze, maker of the classic London taxi, warned of widening losses as it began consultations with workers over further job cuts.

The Coventry-based company, which extended traditional summer shutdowns in response to falling demand, saw sales continue to stall and predicted that full-year losses would be steeper than previously forecast.

Sales in July and August edged up slightly from 159 to 172 units but total sales in the eight months to August fell 9 per cent from 1,328 to 1,207.

John Russell, chief executive, said the expected run-rate of sales suggested the company would not achieve its break-even target of selling 2,000 vehicles a year.

Manganese Bronze moved from a profit of 1.5m to a loss of 636,000 at the interim stage, but the company reported a pre-tax loss of 13m for 2008 after it absorbed 8m of exceptional charges resulting from property and stock writedowns and a product recall. It raised 10m through a share placing in June to strengthen its balance sheet.

An average of broker forecasts had pointed to a full-year loss of 2.5m in 2009.

The company, which has begun production of a cheaper version of its TX4 model in Shanghai in a joint venture with Chinese carmaker Geely, hopes to reduce UK production costs through sourcing cheaper components in the country.

However, it said on Wednesday that the benefits of securing lower-cost Chinese parts had not yet been sufficient to reduce the breakeven level of production, as price increases from UK suppliers and sales discounting has more than offset this benefit.

Manganese Bronze, which has cut headcount by 20 per cent from 470 to 390 since last year after a slowdown in sales, also imposed a 10 per cent salary cut on employees in February and cut the wage bill of hourly paid staff by adding 28 further lay-off days to the traditional summer shutdown.