December 23, 2007
Affordable Electric Car - TH!NK City Electric Vehicle returns (again)
Think also has a plan to deal with single most pressing problem in electric cars - batteries. When you will buy a car, you cannot buy a battery. Instead battery will be leased to owner in form of mobility fee for a $199/€150 per month (and this will include also subscription to mobile/internet service etc)… Average price of operating a car is around $5/3€ per 100 miles/150km. As battery life is decreasing through time, owner will pay less and less for it, or have it replaced for new one. "It's simple as that - we want you to buy mobility ", says CEO and owner of Think, Jan-Olaf Willums. Final price of the car is still not officially released, but should be south of $35.000 / 25.000€…
Ford's Final Assessment of Think Car: http://avt.inl.gov/pdf/uev/thinkcitydemoreportfinal.pdf
Source: www.think.no
Comments on Affordable Electric Car - TH!NK City Electric Vehicle returns (again) »
I almost choked when I saw $35,000. It's a tiny little runabout. I couldn't possible afford that and wouldn't pay more than $15,000. Someone else will have to be the first adopter who's willing to shell out that much. That's going to be a rich eccentric's toy that he keeps in the garage with his Segway.
35,000 - lease the battries - Won't be long until this company goes bankrupt
The lease cost of the batteries alone makes a 15mpg fossil fuel car more economical to operate on a daily basis! (about $.25/mile for the Think (just lease cost) and about $.25/mile for a 15mpg car's gas at $3.80/gallon.
Until battery manufacturers stop raping the public electric cars will remain a plaything of the rich. Anyone know the profit margin/markup on elec vehicle batteries? I bet it's pretty high.
-X