Marc Geller relays a report on Th!nk Global appearing in Financial Times Deutschland.
Jan-Olaf is exploring other battery options.
The company expects to manufacture 10,000 Think City electric cars in 2009, the parts to be manufactured in Thailand and Turkey. The plan is to sell the car (€25,000), using on-line marketing and sales, and lease the battery. The company expects to offer Zebra batteries at first.
Think says it has battery supply contracts with three companies, and is moving into production. It plans to begin selling its cars in Norway, Denmark, Switzerland and the UK next year, with projected sales of 10,000 cars in 2009 and double that by 2011.
While anticipating the all-electric i-MiEV, Sebastian Blanco previously reported that a petrol-powered, Mitsubishi super-mini is selling well in the UK.
Geller certainly is aware of the potential demand by Londoners for electric cars. This blog recently noted the possible addition to the list of electric city cars available to Londoners. One unanswered question is how Th!nk will fare if established car makers begin to offer electric cars.
With its modest volumes, it also remains unclear how Think will cope when bigger competitors such as Renault / Nissan and Daimler come to market with their own electric cars.
Geller projects limited growth in the market for electric drive:
If Think can begin making thousands of cars per year in 2009, I suspect there won’t be much competition for years. Subaru’s snail’s pace production plans are far from ambitious. GM’s Vue and Volt plug-ins have no firm date to appear in showrooms. If Nissan or Mercedes are to make a serious electric offering in the same time frame, we’ll have to hear something soon.
Geller would seem to be overlooking two events on the horizon: peak oil and mass production of rapid charging energy storage.
