Ford’s wrong TH!NKing
Since posting the picture of the Nissan HyperMini recently, I did a bit more searching on the net and found out loads about small electric vehicles. The HyperMini itself was trialled in several major cities in Japan and the USA, but as far as can tell has never been officially on sale, which is a real shame (unless they haven’t been able to set a realistic price). The HyperMini excels both in the design, useful technology and speed/range, making it genuinely practical vehicle.
In the UK, you can buy an electric vehicle called the G-Wiz through GoinGreen who are dealers/importers for the Indian manufacturer, Reva. Although design is very subjective, personally, the design is not to my taste - there are prettier electric vehicles out there, however, as I said design is subjective and clearly, these cars are doing a job, aided no doubt by having to pay no congestion charge, no parking fees and in some car parks, free electricity for recharging too!
The range on them seems to be between 20-40 miles depending on the load, temperature and driving style and they seem based on older battery technology (on the other hand, the range may be fine for typical London journeys). Maybe the fact that they are not technologically cutting-edge makes them reliable and affordable (both important factors), and their popularity has led to a 5 months waiting list - can’t be bad. I found an excellent vblog (Video Blog) by a guy who bought one - take a look at Danny’s Contentment. There is also a thread on the aforementioned blog that mentions that a new type of battery will be available from next year (2006) that will substantially increase both the top speed and range (perhaps that should be speed or range) of the G-Wiz - things are looking good for this little car.
Anyway, back to the title of the article - for a couple of years in the late 90’s, Ford dabbled with electric cars, launching the cute-looking Ford Think City. This was actually developed and produced by a Norwegian company called PIVCO (Personal Independent Vehicle Company) in whom Ford had bought 51% shares. Over 1000 Thinks or TH!NK City (proper name) were produced between 1999 and 2002 until Ford decided to pull out of PIVCO, stating that they wanted to concentrate on other technologies (fuel cells etc). The sad part was that the next generation of the TH!NK CITY was virtually ready to be produced (see photo below). Personally, I think (joke!) Ford was wrong - perhaps the figures don’t stack up for them, being a mega-multinational-conglomerate type of business - who knows. I just hope that PIVCO’s new owners can get the investment they need to get cars into production.
The really nasty action on Ford’s part was that they wanted to recall all the cars (they were all leased for battery cost reasons) and destroy them! What a waste - here were electric cars that people were using on a day-to-day basis, doing a sterling job etc, and Ford wanted to trash them! Eventually pressure from PIVCO led Ford to halt their action and I understand that PIVCO are steadily buying back any vehicles that have naturally come to the end of their lease, refurbishing them and putting them back out for sale in Norway where there is a waiting list.
Anyway, as I mentioned in the thread on the new Honda Civic hybrid, electric vehicles are a great step forward, but should be used in conjunction with new ways of thinking about how we actually use or need transport and of course, consideration towards the methods of electricity generation. For the electric car to be carbon-neutral (in terms of day to day running), renewable electricity sources are an essential.
Links (open in a new window):
Th!nk City (Pivco)
GoinGreen (Reva UK sales)
Danny’s Contentment (a Reva owners vBlog)
Martin’s Rants » Launch of the new Think City in the UK says:
[...] final development of the ‘Mark II’ version, Ford pulled the plug on the company - see earlier post for more. However, new investors were found and the Think City 2 is now in [...]
April 1st, 2008 at 12:50 am