Would you pay 25,000 Euros for a 2-seater TH!NK?
The electric car group in Yahoo has spotted that TH!NK has a new look website, so it seems that things are really starting to happen there at last. Most of it is still in Norwegian, but it's still easy enough to work out that the TH!NK City will be on sale (Norway only) from the equivalent of about 25,000 euros. That sounds pretty pricey for a dinky little 2-seater EV, but remember that car prices in Norway are waaaay higher than even in the UK, so it might be a snip in their terms.
The new TH!NK city has ABS brakes, dual airbags, and meets all European and US safety requirements. It has a range of 170 km (106 miles), a top speed of 100 km/h (62 mph) and has comfort and convenience features such as air conditioning, power steering, sun roof, electric windows and mirrors, and more. Golly jeepers! It sounds like a proper car.
If you're prepared to persevere in a foreign language, the site's now got a cute little calculator to help you work out the cost according to the spec you choose, so this is all looking rather grown-up for an electric car site.
I can't work out the battery blurb though. TH!NK was always talking about leasing the battery, so I wonder how much that adds to the cost. Variable, I guess, as they're planning to be battery agnostic.
And for those of you who absolutely have to have a four-seater, the 2+2 version will be out in 2008.
Christine Gupta
in EV product news
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Response: Air Conditioning MaintenanceThe most accurate heating and cooling intelligence may take a bit of effort to stumble on.
Reader Comments (5)
A straight conversion from Kroner to GBP suggests that the Th!nk would cost around £16k here. But if you reduce the price in line with the average car prices, you could expect a cost of £9,975 - then it suddenly looks a lot more realistic.
A quick disclaimer: This is all just speculation and my entire knowledge of the European car market comes from the link above via a quick Google search!
gordon
cheapgreencar.com
The reason for the outrageous prices on ICE cars in Norway is tax. EVs are exempt from all tax so I guess the starting price equals £16431.
Tom R Simenstad
Oslo, Norway
2000 Th!nk
www.think.no is the old site, now upgraded. They promise english pages in the near future.
They are taking orders for the new Think in Norway and it will be interesting to see the response. l expect that business and local authorities will buy many of the vehicles to get a`"green profile". One investor is a hotel magnate who is talking about having fleets of these vehicles available for guests so they can run around town. In Norway there are many incentives for electric vehicles such as free parking in council run car parks, free passing at toll roads and use of bus lanes. These economies have been used to justify the rather high purchase price. It will not be useful to speculate the price in other european countries at the moment because the production capacity is lacking. The intention was to transfer production to low cost countries if the concept seemed viable, there is no way that Norway can produce cheap vehicles at high volume at the moment.
Regarding the batteries, Think have come up with a part own / part lease ageement to ensure that the batteries do not become the headache that earlier car became. The leased part will cost 77 pounds a month plus VAT but will ensure that any future problems will get sorted for free. By the way, the new batteries are Nickel/ iron/ sulfur and operate at 300degrees centigrade so you wouldn`t want to play with them anyway. I believe that they were developed by British Rail before being sold on to a Swiss conglomerate -.typical.
We have built up a high degree of competance in Norway and the user forums are very informative. One member has just rounded 100,000 miles in a Think with mostly original battery block and the battery behaves as new. These are old nickel cadmium refillable cells.
Last point, the Think car exhibited in the Millenium Dome was bought back into Norwegian ownership where a battery pack was added and eventually sold to a private collector in the USA. I myself drive a Think from 2001 which has driven 80,00Km. Regards Ken