Interview: Think to bring its electric car to the UK

Think is a Norwegian car maker with a colourful history. Founded during the 1970s oil crisis by a boat-builder, the small company managed to develop a compact electric car that was good enough to catch the attention of larger car makers. In 1999 the firm was acquired by Ford, at a time when California seemed poised to force manufacturers to offer zero-emissions cars.

In the end the California emissions laws were softened, and Ford offloaded the firm - but not before it had spent $150m further developing the concept. After a time in the wilderness Think was bought by a private equity firm, and has recently begun production of the Ford-designed Think City.

BusinessGreen.com recently caught up with Don Cochrane, Think’s UK sales and marketing director, to find out more.

BusinessGreen.com: What are Think’s plans for the UK?

Don Cochrane: We’re hoping that the UK will be one of our lead markets. A lot of that comes down to legislation: positive legislation helps to bring this kind of technology to market. There’s no congestion charge, free parking in certain areas, and zero road tax. Tax breaks on import duty would also help us bring it to market [the cars are assembled in Norway]. The UK at the moment has quite good legislation, which helps make the car more attainable, because it’s a very expensive piece of technology. As we’re first to market, we have to pay a lot more for some things than we will have to in five years’ time.

Tell me about your role

I joined the company about five months ago. Before that I worked in advertising and before that I spent seven years working for Bernie Ecclestone in Formula 1 - on the brand side. I’m used to working with big, global brands in the automotive sector. Think was appealing because, having lived in London all my life, I really do feel we need to change our transportation strategy. And also with Think we have the opportunity to build a real, heroic, global brand. That’s a rare thing to get to do.

Will you try to position Think as a premium brand?

Yes, we want Think to be more than just a brand, we want it to be a social movement. It’s an enabler - it allows people to make a difference without having to make too much compromise. The car is realistic: it exists, it works, it’ll provide 95 or 99 per cent of your normal car-driving needs. For those times when you need to drive to Cornwall there are car-sharing schemes. We think it’s a much more efficient way of owning car than having a big vehicle and driving it five miles a day.

What will the Think City cost?

About £14,000 to buy and then there will be battery rental at just over £100 per month. The rental is important because it means that Think maintains liability for the battery, because one of the problems with EVs [electric vehicles] at the moment is that when the battery dies you’ve got a big, expensive block of nothing. This way, if the battery stops performing to its optimum level we’ll just replace it. And if you come to sell the car in five years’ time, you’re not trying to sell it on with a five-year-old battery, where no-one wants to take on that liability. Instead, the new owner just takes on a new rental.

Won’t the ongoing cost be off-putting for buyers?

It’s definitely going to be off-putting for some. We have to find ways of making it more palatable. And structuring it in ways that people understand the cost of ownership argument. Because realistically it’s actually quite cost-efficient. If you drive 10,000 miles in our car, it will cost you about £110 in electricity. A lot of cars cost that just to fill up with petrol now.

The likely life of the battery is what? Five or six years?

That’s right.

So over the lifetime of the battery you’re going to spend at least £6,000 on battery rental. How does that measure up to the cost of simply replacing the battery?

The battery costs about £10,000 at the moment. All these things will come down in time, and as our production scale increases. Initially we’ll be selling the car at a loss, but we can’t take much more of a loss than that.

Who is bearing those losses?

The company is owned by a very well-funded venture capital consortium, based in Norway, and we now have a partnership with GE [it invested $4m] which is not just a financial arrangement, it also gives us access to GE research, which is very important.

Will GE become a battery supplier?

Well GE has also invested in [US battery startup] A123 Systems - we have three battery partners at the moment: A123, EnerDel and Zebra. They’re all trying to make the best cells for us. And we’ll go with whoever makes the best cells at the best price. But the most important thing is that we’re flexible. The car is battery agnostic - it can take a number of different batteries. But by the time the car is launched in the UK, the battery supplier will be decided.

And presumably the car is designed to make swapping out its battery reasonably simple?

There are some fantasy startups that talk about battery-changing stations [presumably Cochrane means Shai Agassi’s Project Better Place] that will let you drive in, swap your exhausted battery for a fully charged one and drive out again. It’s not quite that simple - it’s probably an hour’s job on a ramp. There are 26 bolts under the car, you need to drop it out, put another one in, and reconnect the coolant pipes. It’s not simple but it should be easier than changing a clutch on a conventional car. Also, when you think about the cost of the batteries, the idea of stations that are going to have hundreds of them ready to swap in and out - it’s just unfeasible at this time.

When will I be able to buy a Think City?

We’ll probably start UK sales in the fourth quarter of this year, with first customer deliveries in the first couple of months of 2009. We’ll have left-hand-drive marketing cars in the UK from April, which we’ll be showing to fleet buyers and the press. We plan to start marketing in May and if all goes well we’ll be able to announce a UK distribution deal - we’re in talks at the moment.

The Think City is a two-seater or 2+2. At this month’s Geneva Motor Show Think showed off a larger five-seater called the Ox [pronounced Oh-Ex]. When is that due?

We are courting interest. We would not be able to bring that car to market on our own. It was designed to be as near production ready as possible, but it would cost about $100m to finish developing it and another $100m to bring it to market. Running a car company is ridiculously expensive!

You mentioned fleet buyers. Do you think companies will buy the Think City?

When we’re talking to fleet buyers, we’re not really talking to fleet managers, we’re talking to marketing directors. The USP of the Think is that it’s incredibly green, and it says you’re incredibly green.

It works quite well as a fleet vehicle because it has a thing in it called a Mind Box, so a fleet manager can track vehicles quite easily, and check their state of charge. If you charge it on renewable fuels, it’s completely carbon-free, and even if you don’t it uses a third of the carbon of a conventional car, so it’s an efficient way to reduce carbon emissions. Everyone talks about carbon, but the things that really affect you in cities are noise pollution and particulates, and an EV tackles both.

Also the car is 95 per cent recyclable, and it’s made from 16 per cent recycled parts. The plastic panels are coloured through, so there’s no toxic spray paint, which cuts down the chemicals. So we’re very aware of our footprint throughout the production process.

Most potential buyers will be aware of the Reva/GoinGreen G-Wiz - that’s what they’ll picture when they think of an electric car. Is that going to be a barrier?

It is going to be a problem. The G-Wiz did make the market, but basically it’s classed as a quadricycle - a legal loophole if you like - that means it doesn’t have to go through crash tests and type-approval tests. Because of that the G-Wiz isn’t a very safe vehicle. They’ve just made a safer version, but it’s still not safe. Whereas our car is a real car. We have anti-lock brakes, airbags, pre-tensioned seatbelts, safety cells, side impact bars, and soft materials in the cockpit. It was developed by Ford and they put $150m into it, mainly spent on making it a very safe car in a crash.

Also the G-Wiz, and all the other EVs on the market, have a top speed of about 30 to 40mph, depending on what sort of hill you’re on, and a range of about 40 miles. Our car can go 65mph, and has a range of 125 miles. So it can go on the motorway - it’s much more flexible.

Physics dictates that it takes more energy to travel the same distance if you go faster, so how slowly do you have to drive to get that 125-mile range?

The quoted range is for the combined cycle, under European regulations. That’s the basic average - you may get a bit more or a bit less. But one of the things other EV makers have found is that EV drivers become very economical about how they drive. They become very aware of the effect that driving style has on economy - and all drivers are becoming more aware due to the ludicrous cost of fuel. We no longer have the luxury to throw away energy.

The Think City is still quite a small car, isn’t it?

It’s about halfway between the size of a Micra and a Smart. It’s a lot bigger than the Nice Mega City and the G-Wiz.

When we drove the Nice we found its track wasn’t wide enough to straddle rubber “cushion” speed humps, and wasn’t very comfortable over speed bumps in general, at any speed, which was not ideal for a city car. Will the Think be better?

Our car has a wider track and real suspension. It’s 1600mm wide - almost the same as a Mini. The suspension is sourced from Peugeot - a proper system that’s been proven over years. There are a lot of carry-over parts, but that’s a good thing - they’ve covered hundreds of thousands of miles.

Presumably the proposed changes to the congestion charge, which will see all Band A and B cars go free from October, is a blow to your business model. Previously EVs were one of only a few types of cars that were exempt.

It’s very annoying. The important thing to remember is that we are still free, and still the most environmental vehicle you can buy. There is scope for change in that ruling - we have to see how that pans out. Porsche’s challenge will probably slow it down, but a lot can happen in a year in politics. I’ve spoken to Mark Watts who’s the Mayor’s environmental advisor, and to Ken Livingstone, and they’re both very sorry that that’s the way it had to go, but they felt they wouldn’t be able to get the £25 charge through [for Band G cars] unless they gave something at the same time. They really want to encourage EVs in London, and there is scope for change. We’d like to see a London-wide EV policy, rather than piecemeal parking concessions by borough. We’d also like to see selected use of bus-lanes. There are some bus lanes where motorcycles are allowed, and it would be great if EVs could use them too. Saving money is one thing, but saving time is another and there are a lot of people for whom that would be very attractive.