Posted on 04/25/2008 8:45:50 AM PDT by Red Badger
Think is a Norwegian company specializing in small electric vehicles. Its new concept, called Ox, looks to be a much more mainstream vehicle than any of the minicars the company sells overseas. 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 AT LINK
This is actually what they will be shipping here.....
FROM THE BLOGS.CARS.COM ARTICLE:
The Norwegian company Think Global plans to ship 50,000 of its bite-sized electric cars to the U.S. The vehicles are all electric plug-ins that achieve a top speed of just 65 mph and cost $30,000.
Other than very basic urban driving, we have to call the utility of the Think Global electric car into question. At its size and speed, it would be obnoxious, if not dangerously undersized and slow, on any highway. Not to mention, if you're going to pay $30,000 for a green vehicle, you might as well wait two years and shell out another $5,000 for a Chevy Volt (at least, we hope two years and an extra $5,000 is all it will take).
Also keep in mind that, as with all plug-in vehicles, most of that energy is still coming directly from a coal-fired, carbon-dioxide-happy power plant. We do, however, like the Ox Concept that Think showed earlier this year. If they build that we’ll definitely take it for a test drive.
The top one is CGI.
CGI?......
..and if you die in it, it serves as a casket.
$30K for something that is that butt ugly, only goes 125 mile and top speed is 65MPH? Nowegians are smoking crack if they think this will sell!
Ttop speed of just 65 mph and still cost $30,000? Errrnt!
You early-adopters go ahead. Jump on board these tiny electric bandwagons, folks, and somebody please let me know when the electrified prices come down to hit the break-even point figuring $3.50 gasoline.
A computer-generated image.
It would be interesting to see how much the electricity consumed costs. If the cost of electricity is in the 10 - 12 cents a mile range, it would be cost competitive to gasoline.
The short range would not matter much, because you would “fill it up” every night when you park it. In my most recent home renovation, I had the electrician run a GFI protected outlet to the end of the driveway, just in case.
I think that’s why it’s considered an urban vehicle. You just wouldn’t go on a long drive with it.
Hmmm. Let’s see I am 6’2” and weigh, well let’s say my ideal wieght is 200lbs. I am going to “fit” into this car and have an enjoyable ride?
I never understood the appeal of electric cars.
Wouldn’t charging the batteries from household current just about spin the meter off the pole? A bigger electric bill and more coal/oil/water used to generate that extra electricity to charge your “green” car. And all of those resources getting more and more costly. To say nothing about what happens to that trunkload of batteries when they reach the end of their usable life-what then? Landfill? Somesort of haz mat disposal akin to that of the ‘squiggle’ light bulbs? Oh yeah, real earth friendly.*pfffft*
Electric cars are “feel good” solutions, nothing more.
And by the way, sweat yer azzez off in hot weather with no air conditioning.
I love my two Scion xBs, and it sounds like we could be brothers. The Ox looks doable. The smaller one, not so much.
My daughter wants to do a Daddy/Daughter project to convert a car to electric. I am not ready to hack into one of the Scions just yet, so I am looking at VW 181s (Things) on eBay. It would just be for around-town, so aerodynamics don't matter so much. That is a pretty comfortable, if somewhat spartan, car.
I remember an old (10+ years) TV show about early amateurs converting cars to electric.
The one I though was neat was an electric Honda Civic... when he wanted to further than his battery range, he towed a mini trailer behind with a gas powered generator on it running and giving him an electric supply...:^)
With Turkey point getting another nuke plant down here, I’m very interested in an EV.
It’s wAy more efficient that the ICE (Internal Combustion Engine) in your car!
There is some appeal just in the sense that you don’t have to fill them up at a gas station, just plug ‘em in and go. They’d need to be on fast, smart charger (like they have with higher-end electric tools.
I am not an electric car fan. Mainly because they are so limited in many ways when compared to a gas vehicle. The gas vehicles have much more potential to travel farther, haul more, get there comfortably, take an impact better, better visibility for the driver and to be seen, and of course, if you are in a crash, not burning to death trapped inside because emergency crews don’t want to hit the large voltage circuits/cables trying to cut through the car to get ya out.
Yes, the "green car conundrum". Less pollution at the tailpipe, in this case no tailpipe, and more pollution at the source. A shell game, UNLESS all that electricity is powered by NUCLEAR fuel, which is ZERO EMISSIONS. Talk about nuclear power to any greenie and they go berserk.........well, more berserk than usual...................
That’s pretty good. Reminds me of the parody song on Rush about the two young liberals that die in a Yugo.
Gee, I wonder what they use to make the electricity to power this Smurfmobile? Fossil fuels, for sure unless it is fiord-driven from tidal energy. There is no free lunch.
All good points, but as you said- electric cars are a future solution.
I’ve been hearing about electric cars as a solution to all our woes since the 1980’s.
How far into the future are we willing to wait?
At this point, electric cars are becoming like the flying cars we were all promised back in the 60’s. Neat idea, but it’s not helping us NOW.
I’m glad you’re passionate about those vehicles. I wish I could share your enthusiasm. But I don’t see any new nukes going online any time soon to provide that “cheap electricity” to charge these things. As for recycling batteries. HA! Y’all ain’t from around here are you? Our nearest recycler for ANYTHING, let alone batteries, is about 70 miles away. And if the batteries for your electric car have gave up the ghost, how are you going to get there to recycle them? Ah, yes-once electric cars become the norm recycling centers will spring up like mushrooms-even here. That’s still many years away, I fear.
Suped up golfcarts might be fine for all you metro/suburb folks but here in the remotest regions of flyover country they just don’t make sense for now.
I don’t have a solution. However, propane and compressed air cars are looking better to me.
But I am seriously considering buying a mule- slower, but way cheaper than gas right now and better suited to the terrain.
What's more, most of the energy from those fossil fuels is lost on the way from the power plant to the car.
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