The Wall Street Journal is reporting that a bunch of venture capitalists are now backing Norway’s Think electric-car company. Their plan is to bring the company’s Think City car to the U.S. in 2009 and build it here as well.
I drive a 2002 Ford Think electric car, the open frame model. I’m pretty happy with it, at 3 cents a mile, and I’ve put about 300 miles on it around town since buying it 3 weeks ago. It has gotten a lot of attention in my hometown of Chico, and people are constantly asking me how much it cost and where could they get one? The town is blessed with many alternate back routes, so I don’t have to travel the main congested roads.
The U.S. version is expected to travel 110 miles on a single charge and kind of resembles Smart’s ForTwo. The company expects the car to be priced under $25,000. It’s looking for a site in the U.S. to build U.S.-spec models because it’s cheaper to build an entire line here than it is to ship from Europe, thanks to the weak dollar. Maybe Michigan politicians should be making some calls to Oslo.
The Think City is already in production in Europe, and the company is rushing to produce 10,000 units this year for sale there. One of the people behind the VC funding says they could sell 30,000 to 50,000 Think City cars in the U.S. See Norway’s Think to Produce, Sell Small Electric Cars in U.S. (from WSJ.com)
There is another car that Think has in the pipeline, and it is pretty cool looking, see it below:
Its new concept, called “Ox”, looks to be a much more mainstream vehicle than any of the minicars the company sells overseas.
But the name needs to change, because I don’t want my friends teasing me that I’m driving an “Ox car”. I think they were shooting for some spin on “Oxygen” but missed the mark.
Roughly the size of a Scion xB, the front-wheel-drive Ox MPV will have a 60-kW electric motor and a range of 124 miles on a full charge. It can be charged via a normal household outlet. Charging the car to 80% will take just an hour using a special charger, while a full charge will take 12 hours.
The company is planning to use either sodium or lithium-ion batteries, and there’s a strip of solar cells running down the center of the roof. The Ox is built on an interchangeable platform, so a coupe body style with a larger motor and batteries or a taxicab configuration could also be manufactured.
Unfortunately, the Ox looks to be a true concept, with no firm date on when we could expect to see it on the road. The other unfortunate part is that Think doesn’t have a presence in the U.S. General Electric recently invested $4 million into Think, though, so don’t give up hope of one day seeing the “Ox” on the street. More photos here.
Bring a production version of the Ox with a different name, though, and I’d expect people to line up.
Unless electric cars can be recharged from solar cells, the supposed efficiency of them is not ameloriated, just removed well away from the driver.
The world in which this car makes sense is not today’s world of driving and suburbs. It is not one in which we carry on as now, but the cars have become electric. Its one in which we cycle, walk, shop close by, have stopped using trucks as warehouses, just-in-time has vanished, suburbs have either closed down totally or been rebuilt with town centers. Stip shopping centers and malls have vanished. Passenger air travel has stopped, trains are back and are the primary means of long distance transport for both goods and people. Most people live in high density housing. Chemical agriculture has vanished, and farmers hoe and weed and rotate crops. There is widespread hunger globally.
One of the worst intellectual sins of the environmental movement is to pretend that we can just make a few substitutions and carry on as now with alternative energy. We cannot. If oil is running out enough to make these cars attractive, it will be a very different place indeed that we live in.
JOE S you missed my point. The Camry can move 5 passengers 30+ miles on one gallon of gas (150 passenger miles). The smart moves two passengers 40 miles on one gallon (80 passenger miles). Which is more efficient? Additionally, the Camry has a real trunk capable of holding the groceries necessary to feed those five passengers. The Smart can hold your lunch pail. The Smart will become a better alternative when its MPG reaches 75 or more.
FRED, the truth can be scary.
“Remember fuel cell power cars will require a large investment in Hydrogen infastructure fill stations and more safety designed into cars” $$.econn
Great news! There is an aluminum-gallium alloy that disassociates water into hydrogen and oxygen. Actually, the oxygen corrodes the alloy which can later be reduced to close the cycle. The hydrogen can thus be produced on demand in the car.
Here is a link: http://www.physorg.com/news98556080.html
I am beginning to look at mules for farm power. We used to run the ranch using big work horses. You can tell because the bits, horseshoes and stable stuff I find all over the ranch are all HUGE. Mules are less fussy about feed and if bred to coldblooded workhorses, their cold blood makes them a bit more gentle (as in don’t EVER pasture regular horse/ass mules with sheep, cows, or other kinds of farm animals). As for the cold issue, where I live, you almost have to heat gasoline engines, let alone diesel engines. I can’t imagine driving two minutes in a cold metal car that took an hour to start. At least a horse gives off heat.
When you calculate the cost of a ‘petrol’ fueled car, be sure to include the impact of extraction, transport, refinement, and delivery to the customer. Forget ‘global warming’, that creates a fair amount of air and sea pollution.
Generating electricity isn’t great, from coal or gas, hydro and nucs are much cleaner. We do not depend a whole lot on unstable foreign governments for our electricity. That’s a big plus.
I assume most things cost about what they should, based on supply and demand. My 30 mpg little car costs 13 cents per mile in gas. An electric might cost 4 cents for the same performance. Battery replacement is an issue. You get 400-500 charge cycles per pack. At 100 miles per charge, about 45,000 miles. If the replacement battery costs more than $4000, not so good.
The Volt, if it ever happens, is a good compromise, although I wish they had pursued a turbine instead of a piston engine. Or a fuel cell. Hydrogen is a disaster, ethanol does work, gasoline and diesel are possible, so that infrastructure could already be in place.
I don’t think there is any one solution for everyone, different options for different lifestyles. At least some folks are thinking about it.
People in the UK should not be worrying about carbon footprints, Their kids are more likely to be killed by a knife attack.
In the UK we are experiencing blackouts. We are being warned that we are not building enough power stations and that within 10 years we’ll have half the generation capacity we have now. We will have to close half of our coal-powered stations as they will be too costly to convert to meet stricter EU ‘green’ directives. We are late building the 10 new Nuclear power stations we’ll need (how are the nuclear fuel reserves looking?). We haven’t even started the planning for these and we’ve sold off our own Nuclear power building company to the Japanese. Supposedly 38% of our electricity has to come from ‘sustainable’ energy such as wind farms by 2020, again EU directives. We’ll also need to import more gas from Russia as our own gas fields produce less. We are in a right mess.
Moving to electric cars is the last thing we need.
REPLY: I guess you won’t be chanting “God Save the Greens” over there. Time to cast off the shackles.
Antony, if only we could chuck those shackles. All three major UK political parties are almost indistinguishable on green issues and are completely bought into AGW. Not that they matter anyway. All the laws that count come from the unelected, undemocratic EUSSR.
The UK ceases to exist 1 Jan 2009. Democracy is dead in Europe. Workers of the world untie. Indeed (irony).
Does 110 miles between charges? (charges that cost how much, btw, given the price of electricity now?) Costs “only” $25,000??
Well that’s an attractive prospect. Not.
REPLY: I understand where you are coming from, I thought the same things at first. But in-town it works great. I’ve never far away from a power outlet and I’ve been able to do all my errands and work trips with it.
For a commuter, it would also work if the car has the range and speed. For example, the $12 a day in parking I get charged at Sacramento International Airport is waived for electric vehicles, and they offer free charging stands. For as much as I travel, that is indeed an incentive.
JOE S you missed my point.
No, I didn’t miss your point. I never said anything about seat (passenger) miles. You did. It was your hook for taking issue with my post. If we’re going to use seat miles, then a school bus that gets 5 miles per gallon and will haul 60 passengers and likely some luggage should be the REAL ticket for us all, huh?
I haven’t had anyone other than myself in my automobile since last October. More passengers than that? Years! Couldn’t it be that not all folks have need for what a Camry (or a school bus) offers?
No matter how you slice it, at around 40 mpg, I’ll be way farther down the road on a gallon of gas than your 30+ mpg illustration.
I understand the concerns and problems expressed here are valid and the current and near future crop of electric powered vehicles will not replace the Suburbans of the world tomorrow.
But think about the 25 year transition from the first Apple Mac to the Mac of today. The Atari Pong to Halo 3 on the Xbox 360. The Civic of the mid 70s to the Civic of today.
If inventors and investors of today see that money is to be made in solar cells, battery development, and charging technology, the improvements will come rapidly and you will see that the needed infrastucturer will fall behind until the market adjusts to take advantage of the opportunity.
What we have to avoid and must fight against is trying to bring this about via laws and regulation. The market will decide the proper distribution of capital, not a legislative body.
“REPLY: Here’s the thing, we have SCADS of excess generation capacity at night, when most of these will be plugged in, parked in the homeowners garage.
Power plants have to throttle back at night as it is. I don’t see this being a big impact.”
The electric car is a great idea, but like all the rest of government inspired programs, will be poorly executed. Retire Engineer pointed out a vehicle getting 30 mpg costs 13 cents/mile, whereas the electric car as you calculated currently costs 3 cents. As has been pointed out any significant shift of vehicles from gasoline to electric is going to have reprecussions. I have written about this consequence, the short story is electric rates will go up 5 fold if things unfold as you hope. So that 3 cents goes to 15 cents per mile. http://conservablogs.com/publiusforum/2008/04/26/agw-insanity-has-reached-new-heights-of-absurdity-2/#more-2068 The reason is natural gas is used to generate electricity for the peak with coal as the backstop. Natural gas sets the electric rates. Nightly power consumption is normally supplied by nuclear power and coal, any significant increase during the night means natural gas will be required to make up the difference, and therefore electric rates will go up to the current daytime rate, what’s worse the current daytime rate will go up because of the competition for natural gas from night time use. How many of you are prepared to see a 5 fold increase in your electric bills? Imagine your summer electric bill jump from $200/month to $1000/month! Yes we have excess generating capacity, but at what cost?
You can’t have the electric car without a five fold increase in coal and nuclear power output. If you use coal to generate electricity all you do is relocate the tail pipe emission. Current government policy is completely the reverse of what is needed to support the electric car.
How many miles to a pound of coal?
“If you use coal to generate electricity all you do is relocate the tail pipe emission. ” dscott
This reminds me of why men prefer sons to daughters. But to your point:
It is far more efficient to treat the emissions from a few smokestacks than from millions.
JOE S, please don’t hyperventilate on me. You’re right, if you use one passenger per vehicle, 40 is greater than 30. However, look at your example of a school bus – a much more efficient way of transporting those those kids than having a fleet of Smart taxis. BTW there are other small cars in production that match or exceed the Smart. All I was trying to point out is that the Smart doesn’t represent a breakthrough in gas mileage.
Kerry Bradshaw, electric cars can and are being made right now by garage mechanics that use standard lead-acid batteries (like 20 batteries in series to produce 20x12V or 240V — a standard 240V DC motor can then be used).
No $15K replacement batteries needed.
“It is far more efficient to treat the emissions from a few smokestacks than from millions.”
Hmmm, not so sure about that assertion. But as far as I am concerned, vehicle tailpipe emissions are of little concern given how clean the current tailpipe emissons are, I tossed that in for those who are concerned about CO2. As someone else here pointed out, whatever you gained in efficiency at a central plant is lost in transportation and conversion. Don’t get me wrong, I like the electric car and believe it is long overdue, however, unless the environmental wackos are willing to stop the no nukes opposition, the electric car will only shift combustion to another place and not reduce tailpipe emissions. Once they drop their opposition, then the US can vastly reduce its dependence of oil and gas as a matter of national security and trade balance. This also means bringing back the breeder reactor as the French have used for years to reprocess the spent fuel rods thus vastly reducing toxic nuclear waste. Idiot Carter and the environmental wackos created the nuclear waste storage problem and Yucca Mountain because their blanket ban on anything nuclear.
nice wheels.
As a city dweller with no garage or guarentee of on-street parking I’d have to wonder where I’d charge mine, however it’d be perfect for my needs since I don’t venture far from home, and when I do I take the train/bus/fly.
In Europe this makes a lot of sense. Over 50% of thier fuel costs are tied to taxes. In the US this makes sense as long as long term fuel costs hover at $4 per gallon or above, and the use doesn’t have far to commute. But what will happen if the Dollar actually recovers some or most of its 2007 value? The $4-5/gallon prices we see now will plunge to $3 or less.
Hyperventilate? You flatter yourself.
if you use one passenger per vehicle, 40 is greater than 30.
Using your passenger mile efficiency standard, even two per vehicle (the Smart’s capacity) works over the Camry passenger miles per gallon example you hold out.
However, look at your example of a school bus – a much more efficient way of transporting those those kids than having a fleet of Smart taxis.
Those kids? Where’d you get all “those kids”? I used the silly school bus example of passenger mile efficiency because you used passenger miles per gallon as the standard by which to measure, whether capacity was being utilized or not.
BTW there are other small cars in production that match or exceed the Smart.
So what?! Forty miles per gallon for an automobile is great, I’ll still contend. Much more than “mediocre at best”.
All I was trying to point out is that the Smart doesn’t represent a breakthrough in gas mileage.
You’ll never convince me that’s the case. Looking back at you first post in this thread (Do I need to quote it?), I suggest all you were trying to do is look for an argument from anyone that would jump in the ring with you. In particular, though, you tapped me on the shoulder, got what you wanted and now there’s this embarrassing exchange at Anthony’s blog…a place where I like to come have a little fun.
Novoburgo, leave me alone.
dscott,
We agree except for my quibble. It is one of the great ironies that the greenies should be dragged kicking and screaming to nuclear power. Yes, the French get ~ 80% of their electric power from nukes.
Perhaps, if we just bend over and go socialist all the way then the wackos would spend less of their time and energy destroying the economy to bring about socialism. Hopefully, this will backfire and people will decide liberty should be given a chance instead
Let the market (people) decide.
40 miles per gallon for a car is not even especially good. Why are we arguing about it? You can buy small cars that can do it. A Prius will do considerably better will it not? The range and power limit on this one leaves me unimpressed.
I think a lot of electric ideas will work fine if we can get photovoltaic efficiency up a bit. Does anyone out there know who is a good source for high efficiency PV materials?
What do the French do with their spent fuel?