Canadian ideas for greener living
“Think”ing about an Electric Car? Part 2
Electric cars are on the rise! Tesla…everywhere! It seems the corporate world is paying a little more attention to this current niche market, all we can hope is with time electric cars will become the norm. Well today I have a big juicy piece of information that may be another great step forward for the expansion of the electric car.
GE has announced that it is ramping up its efforts to promote electric transportation by investing in Norwegian electric car manufacturer Think. Where does that Think name sound familiar? Oh yes, thats right, we were raving about this company months ago, and now it seems they have some serious backing to help get the company moving. GE is already doing amazing work and I can write pages about them, but its great to see them steeping into the automotive industry to try and help a great company. To power its vehicles, Think has signed a commercial supply agreement with lithium-ion battery manufacturer A123Systems. GE plans to to help both companies commercialize technology to make electric transportation practical and affordable. Just awsome! Go here to get the full article, and make sure to read it. This is a great step forward for another rising electric car company.
Keep it Green,
Paul
This entry was posted on Thursday, March 6th, 2008 at 10:43 pm and is filed under Automotive, Business, Energy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
4 Responses to ““Think”ing about an Electric Car? Part 2”
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And this time around, the development of electric vehicles is unstoppable. There are now so many bigname carmakers entering the race. Next week at the New York car show, Subaru will be displaying its lovely little R1e and announcing that its public release has been brought forward a year to 2009. Mitsubishi will be displaying its MiEV electric car which will also go into production in 2009. BMW are likely to soon confirm that they will build an electric car for the US market – probably with a partner. Nissan and Renault are racing to beat them all to the market, but so far have announced 2010 as the launch date in some areas and 2011/12 worldwide.
In the commercial vehicles field things are even further advanced. Two UK comanies – Modec ( http://www.modec.co.uk ) and Smith EV ( http://www.smithelectricvehicles.com ) already have several hundred all-electric vans and trucks, from 3.5 tons (Transit size) to 12 tons. Smith (part of Tanfield Group) are ramping up production to 10,000 vehicles a year by 2010, with new factories being built in the USA and north-east England.
The future is electric – and it’s coming to a roadway near you very soon!
Bob
Great comment, thanks very much for the insight. If you come across more electric car news please notify us, you appear to be very knowledgeable in this area
A123 System’s biggest boost has come from GM, which actually has a practical design for an electric car, not just throwing a battery and electric motor into a vehicle and hoping the buyer doesn’t need to travel more than 40 miles to a destination. We will ALWAYS need to travel more than 40 miles and any vehicle that cannot travel to distant places is totally useless.
Kent
you are nuts. For the amount of cash you will save, you can rent a gas guzzler to go on your long trips. But that will be short lived. Batteries companies are making leaps and bounds.