2009 th!nk city
Ever-struggling long-experienced electric car maker Th!nk is planning on bringing the
City to our cities in the US next year, allowing you to go gas-free, Norwegian-style. The little car has a 126-mile range on an overnight charge, and if you give the batteries a workout, the City will top out at 65 MPH. It's going to take a while to get there, though: Despite its top speed, they've only listed a 0-50 time of 16 seconds, leaving us to assume their stopwatch doesn't read high enough to record a proper 0-60 time. More specs and full release after the jump.
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novelties
If you've brought a trailer full of Saleen wares to hawk during the
Ford Racing weekend at Milan Dragway, you don't just
walk around the pit area; you ride in style with a hotted-up Th!nk Neighbor. This bad boy is sporting dual exhausts to keep the electric motor breathing freely, a set of Minilite wheels to drop the unsprung weight, a Mustang steering wheel, bucket seats and an extra gauge pod, plus it's festooned with some rad Saleen decals. Bet this thing
flies on the quarter mile.
news
Tesla Motors' plans to sell battery packs to Norwegian company Think Global has been put on hold as the company plans to focus on shipping cars to the 600 people who paid a lot of money and still have nothing to drive (except a fleet of other cars, presuming they're very wealthy). It was hoped this deal would help Tesla diversify and maybe gain a little income to help with the cost of producing cars, but the cost and effort of producing the batteries interfered with the idea that they would make cars, which has been delayed until 2008. It's a great business model. Maybe they should just call the car the Tesla Motors Vista Leopard Roadster.
[Greentech Media]
pushing edison's medicine
Bay Area electrocar purveyors Tesla are spooling up a new division to sell battery packs to other electric vehicle manufacturers, as well as to supply their own products with power packs. Their first outside client for the lithion-ion packs has been announced as Norway-based black metallists THiNK, who, if one follows such things, one may recall as a former unit of FoMoCo. Tesla expects to rake in around $43 mil a year. We just want to know when we can get one for our iPod.
– Davey G. Johnson
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alternative energy
Who killed the electric THiNK car Ford distributed in the US a few years back? It was Ford itself around 2003, when California dropped the requirement that automakers produce battery-powered electric cars. Now, the current owner of THiNK, a Norwegian concern, says it will relaunch the plastic EV in 2007 as the City car. Battery range is up from 50 miles to close to 80, and a new body kit will likely get the Oslo kids to rethink their lives of sardines, grindcore, and absinthe shooters (we kid the Oslo kids). ABS brakes, power steering and central door locking are standard, as is a sincere trust in mankind.
– Mike Spinelli
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news: industry news
The former Ford unit from Norway is scrambling back from its bankruptcy nearly a year ago and hopes to have a new set of diminutive wee small tiny electric cars on the road next year. Apparently, range has been upped to 80 miles from the previous 50, and the company is actively recruiting to fill positions. For some reason, we're just not particularly excited about this. We like minicars. We like cool, weird electric cars. We even like Scandanavian cars. But we think we'd rather have a Daihatsu Boon with a Tesla powertrain and Volvo 245 badges. Oh, and typing "TH!NK" is annoying. So we won't.
– Davey G. Johnson
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news: industry news
Back when electric cars were seen as a possibly viable method of ameliorating pollution in urban and retirement-home environments, Ford brought over some li'l 'lectric beasties from Scandanavia. It owned a company called Think, which like eight of you may recall. It later divested itself of the electron-motivated Norwegian concern, and the new owners found themselves fighting a losing battle. And now they're bankrupt.
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Jalopnik
