Today EnerDel announced a deal with Norwegian automaker Th!nk to be the “supplier of choice” of lithium-ion battery packs for their City electric vehicles (EV) (LINK).
EnerDel is to supply a working prototype of a higher-density cell (than the HEV ones) by March 2008 which would allow a range of 100 miles.
Th!ink describes this as the largest automotive lithium-ion battery contract to date, possibly worth up to 200 million dollars.
Now let’s see if Th!nk can make this car, and, if so, will it make it to the U.S. or be able to compete with the Volt?
This entry was posted on Monday, October 15th, 2007 at 4:28 pm and is filed under Battery, Competitors, Financial. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
Oct 15th, 2007 (5:00 pm)Do they have any plans to develop a series hybrid with an ICE range extender?
Oct 15th, 2007 (7:18 pm)I think these smaller city cars manufactured by companies such as Smart and Reva are exclusively for the city and I’d have safety concerns going on a highway in one of these cars. Therefore, a range extender would be a redundant feature in my opinion.
Oct 15th, 2007 (9:13 pm)A 200 million dollar deal and they have not made or sold one yet. That is very premature. Get them built and when they start selling, then make big claims of millions.
Oct 15th, 2007 (9:43 pm)Think has been around since the mid 90′s with little success due to the size and as MarioM said, they “are exclusively for the city.” I think that’s why the Volt has finally captured our attention: a “city” or commuter electric car that can still go long distances when needed and doesn’t look like a kid’s toy car. I hope Think does well, but I would have no interest in buying one because it doesn’t offer the versatility of the Volt.
(BTW– The Think ‘concept’ car design hasn’t changed in 10 years… it looks very dated even before it gets into production)
Oct 15th, 2007 (10:12 pm)Off topic but important : a new article in Edmunds provides more plausible figure for the 2008 BYD plug-in driving range : it
claims 60 miles (and 270 miles when using gas to recharge the batteries). The driving electric range quoted elsewhere (290 miles) was out of line and not plausible. The misunderstanding arose, I think, from the fact that apparently all propulsion is from the battery (ala VOLT), and therefore electric.
Top speed is also reduced to 100 MPH rather than the earlier claim of 120.
The link:
http://www.edmunds.com/insideline/do/News/articleId=123027
This clears up the question I had about the fishy electric driving range claim.
Oct 16th, 2007 (6:52 am)Lets assume the actual range is 90 miles and you get 3 miles per KWH, which means the car will have about a 30 KWH battery.
Now if the battery costs $2500 per KWH, its price will be north of $75,000. Hardly competion for the Volt.
Oct 16th, 2007 (7:58 am)“Lets assume the actual range is 90 miles and you get 3 miles per KWH, which means the car will have about a 30 KWH battery.
Now if the battery costs $2500 per KWH, its price will be north of $75,000.”
The Think, smaller than the VOLT (which gets 5 miles per kilowatt hour), will only need around 12 to 14 kilowatt hours to travel 90 miles. Obviously, the battery isn’t going to cost $2500 per kilowatt hour, or Think wouldn’t buy it.
Oct 16th, 2007 (9:37 am)Th!nk inked a deal with Tesla a while back didn’t they? Wonder if Tesla failed to deliver.
Oct 17th, 2007 (11:14 am)Sorry, I must have confused companies, because I recalled the battery pack was 600 watts for $1500. Perhaps that is not going to the price? And I do not expect to Volt to get 5 MPK overall, but rather 3 to 3.5. Time will tell.