ENGINEERING company The Tanfield Group revealed last night that it plans to invest tens of millions of pounds on two factories in the US as part of its fight for a share of the continent's multi-billion-dollar zero-emission vehicle market.

The company is planning to increase production of its Smith Electric Vehicles and UpRight Powered Access divisions five-fold in the US by the end of the year, in a move that could lead to further job creation at its North-East headquarters.

Last night, Tanfield chief executive Darren Kell revealed that the company was looking at potential locations for bases to add to its factory in Fresno, California.

The site is already receiving orders of more than $1m a week, and Tanfield is bracing itself for a boom in orders thanks to a period of growth in the $4bn US electric vehicle market.

Mr Kell said the new factories would require "significant" investment, thought to involve tens of millions of pounds, and could lead to the creation of between 50 and 100 jobs at its Vigo Centre base, in Washington, Wearside, over the next 18 months.

He told The Northern Echo: "The US is a massive market, and to really keep up with demand, we need to have more facilities on the ground there.

"We are looking at a five-fold increase in capacity - we are currently producing about 30 units a week, but need to be producing over 100 by the end of the year.

"A typical customer in the UK or Europe might place an order for 50 or maybe hundreds, but in the US, that becomes thousands - there is a massive difference in the scale of orders."

A Tanfield spokesman said it was confident of regaining the strong position its newest division UpRight once held in the US market - with a share of up to ten per cent - before a construction industry crash in 2001 sent UpRight into administration.

In the UK and Europe, Tanfield has been growing consistently, with booming orders in the Smith and UpRight divisions. The firm revealed an 82.6 per cent rise in annual turnover to £40.9m last year, and a 75 per cent surge in profit to £3.5m. The company, which is listed on the Alternative Investment Market, revealed earlier this year that UpRight already has a worldwide forward order book of more than £35m for this year, and its global network of distributors increased from 15 to 150 in six months.

Smith has also scored a series of potentially lucrative deals, with four initial orders for its Edison model set to lead to £40m permanent contracts, and trials of its Newton vehicle by TNT that could lead to an order worth at least £24m.