Financial Times on Th!nk

Financial Times Deutschland has a report on Th!nk Global. Putting a little flesh on the bones of previous reporting. 10,000 Think City electric cars in 2009. Parts manufacturing in Thailand and Turkey. As previous reported, plan is to sell the car (€25,000) and lease the battery. Zebra batteries first. Online marketing and sales.

Think says it has battery supply contracts with three companies, and is moving into production. It plans to begin selling its cars in Norway, Denmark, Switzerland and the UK next year, with projected sales of 10,000 cars in 2009 and double that by 2011.

One question raised in the story is how Th!nk will fare as established carmakers bring electric cars to market.

With its modest volumes, it also remains unclear how Think will cope when bigger competitors such as Renault/Nissan and Daimler come to market with their own electric cars.

If Think can begin making thousands of cars per year in 2009, I suspect there won't be much competition for years. Subaru's snail's pace production plans are far from ambitious. GM's Vue and Volt plug-ins have no firm date to appear in showrooms. If Nissan or Mercedes are to make a serious electric offering in the same time frame, we'll have to hear something soon.