Ford Th!nk City EV Protest - S.F. October, 2002

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Local news coverage at a Ford dealership in San Francisco.
People who leased the Ford Th!nk City EV and other EV enthusiasts stage a protest when Ford cancels what was a popular electric car program... only months after promising a second generation of Think City EVs designed to meet DOT standards. Another example of a major automaker throwing away a golden opportunity to lead an emerging EV market, instead they continue to perpetuate the wasteful gas-guzzling status quo.
Ford originally planned to crush the electric cars, like GM did with the EV1... but after protests in California by EV clubs and protests by Greenpeace at Ford's corporate building in Norway received global media coverage, Ford agreed to instead ship the cars from the US program back to Norway where they were sold to the public.

The story continues: Presently the Th!nk factory in Norway is under new ownership, and the company (Think Nordic) has plans to start selling the new model in 2007. We hope they will sell the cars in the US since the new model has already been approved by the DOT, and the market for electric vehicles is MUCH stronger now than it was just a few years ago. I personally believe, based on my contact with the general public here in Northern CA that they can sell thousands of these cars right now if they put dealers in the San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles markets.

Here are some other related YouTube videos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sS3WbXb1baY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2fVoCOPwOw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=al9_CjSH1XU

Some links to more info and photos of the Th!nk Cars...

http://www.think.no/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Think_Nordic
http://autos.groups.yahoo.com/group/think_ev/
http://www.austinev.org/evalbum/type/THNK
http://www.pluginamerica.org/gallery/index.php?v=list&i=0&p=Electric-...
http://www.npcimaging.com/EAA/think.htm

For more info about Electric Vehicles:

http://www.eaaev.org/eaalinks.html
http://www.pluginamerica.com/
http://www.austinev.org/evalbum/

Category:

Autos & Vehicles

Tags:

• electric
• car
• EV
• Ford
• Th!nk
• City
• San
• Francisco
• protest
• ZEV
• hybrid
• FCV
• solar
• renewable
• energy
• Think
• California
• Norway

[1985Porsche944]

the electric car in a good idea but you still have to get the energy from someplace meaning a perhaps fosil fuel plant for the electricity or a nuclear plant or somplace else. a good car that would be green compared to some of these would be a solar panel car with a battery of course

[ManRayDali]

As a matter of fact, many electric car owners have solar panels on the roofs of their houses that not only charge up the car, but power the entire house as well. The technology to do this has been available for over 20 years... Prices have actually come down to a level that pretty much anyone who can afford to buy a house can add solar panels. Even without solar panels, electricity from a well-regulated modern power plant is still much cleaner than millions of small gasoline engines.

[janebusby]

'Theres not enough market for the Think' ???

What a pile of HORSE SHIT!

[janebusby]

This is nothing but a PR stunt.

Big badge auto makers make these electric cars to make themselves look good. There is more profit in building & maintaining the combustion engine unfortunately. So they have these 'eco cars' ready for production, but will ONLY produce them at the LAST available moment! IE. Either when the small independent firms make EVs which threaten to outsell their conventional cars or when gas runs out!!! They're about as committed to the cause as Exxon or Mr. Bush are!

[numb1010]

is the think for sale in the us now? i drove one years ago, strange to hear no engine sound :)

[Redshift21]

In the light of recent events I wonder if Ford regret not sticking with the think...... probably not Ford management are fucking morons.

[jp7464]

Exactly what GM did with the EV1, When they get a model that they think will be popular they won't sell it to begin with, they only lease them so they have complete control over the outcome, and in the end they refuse to sell them to the public after they make them fall in love with them.

Remember GM took all the EV1's out into the AZ desert and crushed them even tho there was more people wanting to buy them than they had cars. There's a good movie on Google video about it. Just do a search.

[xmoddriver16]

HAHA exploding "Police Interceptions" that kill "police people" And your gonna be persuade by a stupid bitch in a wedding dress

[signsoflife7]

Thanks Limey. His research is excellent.

Sondano, that's not quiet correct. Utility company bosses have gone on record as stating they can handle widespread EV use, this 'non-stop blackout' stuff is fiction. And as not one single major car maker has committed to a timeline for any EV introduction we're not looking at tens of thousands of EVs suddenly appearing.

GM's 'Volt' will be late, and will cost $40k +

As for Ford/Chrysler/Toyota/Honda...

A lot of talk but no action.

Time to DIY.

[theslimeylimey]

janebusy: You hit the nail on the head there.

Also, solar electric power is not economic for home use because the cost of the system is so high. BUT, if you have a plug electric car, the fuel savings DO make it economical and you can essentially be off-grid and paid for in only a few years and your energy costs then drop to near zero. I think this is a huge threat to oil and private power producers.

[theslimeylimey]

You should check out liveoilfree on YT. He has an all electric Rav4 that has financed his home solar system with the fuel savings over the last few years and actually gets paid for the excess power he generates during the day and uses the credit to recharge off peak at night.

[signsoflife7]

Sorry. but the idea that we'd have non-stop blackouts is not realistic because EVs will be bought gradually.

We're not going to have millions of them overnight.

And they'd be mostly charged at night, not during peak daytime hours.

It is the EV's efficiency when using the energy produced by the coal/nuclear power that makes it more effective than the internal combustion engine.

Only 15-20% of the energy produced by an ICE actually moves the car.

In EVs, the number is 85%.

[sondano]

Cleaner - if it's not a coal plant - but more expensive and much less efficient. Our current infrastructure could not support and EV dominated transportation sector, anyway. It would be a non-stop blackout.