Which Way, Battery? (Part 5 - Final: Sodium)

With a re-vamped web site and a note that the man who "saved the global economy", Gordon Brown, took a recent look at their technology at his no. 10 Downing Street residence, Think Global electric car company seems to be getting increased attention from around the world.

Think operates from Aurskog, Norway, and was founded 1991. Branding for their name has recently changed, from "Think!" to the more recent "Th!nk", since I last viewed their web site for my blog on the Capital Region Energy Forum (CREF).

Think's updated home-page prominently features a Manhattan skyline-type city photo (is that the Brooklyn Bridge?), and is communicating Think's intention of selling their electric cars to the U.K. soon, and possibly to the U.S. soon-after.

<-- From think.no: Photo of the "Th!nk city" electric car model, available with a sodium battery option. Click here for a YouTube video of the Th!nk city.

The innovative Norwegian electric car company has partnered with a Swiss company, Mes-Dea, to develop a sodium battery with a high energy density and long range. The battery is less sensitive to ambient temperatures (more detailed specs. were hard to find).

Branded under the "Zebra" tag, operating battery temperature is between 260 and 360 degrees Celsius. Active materials in the Zebra are both sodium and nickel. The heated battery materials are vacuum-insulated and sealed, resulting in operating efficiency in relatively hot and cold climates.

While a sodium battery for a cold weather environment definitely is interesting to this blogger here in frigid northern New York State, what I found just as interesting is Think's approach to global distribution:

On their updated web site is the "Buy a TH!NK city" link. Following this link, Think is stating that initial distribution of their vehicles will be targeted to "EV Friendly" (Electric Vehicle-Friendly) European cities. Think qualifies EV Friendly cities as follows:

1. EV Purchase incentives – the available rebates, tax incentives or other purchase incentives available at the city, state or national government level, including reductions in annual tax charges. This includes measures available for individual purchasers, as well as those available for fleet and car sharing customers.

2. EV Usage measures – includes actions which make it more attractive to use an electric car, including:

• Availability of free charging in both public and private sector locations
• Freedom from congestion charges or road use tolls
• Free on-street and off-street parking for EV's and preferred parking locations
• Ability to use bus, taxi and high-occupancy vehicle lanes on city and surrounding area roads
• Customer discounts on electricity

3. EV impact – includes the environmental and air pollution benefits of using an electric vehicle, including the use of energy from renewable sources at the city level.

This approach is definitely a novel way to find distribution for your automobiles. I suspect at some point, Think will tackle a problem I personally had when trying to "buy direct" from a car maker via the Internet:

It's only recently that I personally became aware of the tangle of laws (U.S. state and federal is my understanding) that prevent direct sales of automobiles to New York State citizens via the Internet.

This likely explains why, when attempting to buy my Toyota RAV4 a few years ago, the option to buy directly from Toyota motor corporation was not available to me via their web site.

However, with all the restructuring going on in the automobile industry, I can see my local laws getting a re-think (no pun intended) over the next few years. If any of you folks in other parts of the U.S. or world have similar laws preventing direct purchases of automobiles via the Internet, I'd be grateful to know what you think about them here in this blog.

- Larry

http://www.think.no/think/Technology-Innovation/Batteries

http://www.think.no/think/content/view/full/290

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Think_Global