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The new electric car model: Designed in California, made in China

Posted in electric cars, green cars, green startups, tagged , , on June 5, 2009| 3 Comments »

CODA Front_hires

photo: Coda Automotive

A new electric car company, Coda Automotive, emerged from stealth mode this week and unveiled a $45,000 sedan that it says will hit the streets in 2010.

The Santa Monica, Calif., startup is an offshoot of Miles Electric Vehicles, a maker of low-speed neighborhood runabouts. The CEO is Kevin Czinger, a veteran of Goldman Sachs (GS), Fortress Investment Group and dot-com era online grocer WebVan. Goldman Sachs’ Mac Heller serves as co-chairman and the board includes John Bryson, past chairman and chief executive of Edison International (EIX). Coda has raised $40 million from the Angeleno Group and other investors.

Green Wombat took a spin in the car, called the Coda, earlier this week in Southern California. As I wrote in my Green State column on Grist:

Open one of those minimalist black boxes that contain a shiny new iPod and you’re greeted by five words—“Designed by Apple in California.” In much smaller print would be the phrase “Made in China.”

That, in a nutshell, describes the strategy of the latest entrant in the electric car sweepstakes: Santa Monica-based Coda Automotive. At a defunct Wilshire Boulevard Jaguar dealership on Wednesday, the startup emerged from stealth mode and CEO Kevin Czinger literally pulled the cover off the Coda, a $45,000 battery-powered sedan set to go on sale next year in California. Coda is an offshoot of Miles Electric Vehicles, a maker of low-speed “neighborhood electric” runabouts.

The Coda sedan, which resembles a previous-generation Honda Civic, is a highway-ready, 80 mph five-seater that will travel 90 to 120 miles on a charge, according to the company.

And it is likely to be the first Chinese-made car to hit American roads. The car’s 333-volt lithium ion battery pack comes from the Tianjin Lishen Battery Joint-Stock Co., a huge state-owned corporation that supplies batteries to Apple and other consumer electronics companies.  Coda has established a joint venture with Tianjin Lishen to design and sell batteries for transportation and utility storage. The sedan’s design, brand and intellectual property will be owned by Coda, but it will be manufactured and assembled in China by Hafei, a state-owned automobile and aircraft manufacturer.

Read the rest of the column here.

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Think rolls into Spain

Posted in electric cars, green cars, Think, Think Global, tagged , , on May 6, 2009| 3 Comments »

spanish-decal-car

photo: Think

Norwegian electric automaker Think on Wednesday announced a deal to send 550 of its City urban runabouts to Spain, continuing to seed the European market as governments offer incentives for carbon-free cars.

The deal with Spanish electric car distributor Going Green calls for Think to start delivering the City later this year through early 2010. Spain’s government has launched a €10 million ($13.3 million) program to subsidize electric cars and an electric car charging network. Going Green will sell the Think City to private customers as well as to companies and municipalities.

“Spain is an important and large market for us, and the Spanish government’s decisive action to move to electric vehicles will enable Think to continue to take advantage of our first-mover position in the European EV market,” Think CEO Richard Canny said in a statement.

Think has done similar-sized deals in the Netherlands and Austria while it conducts a bake-off in the U.S. among eight states that want to host the company’s North American assembly plant. While Think continues to do deals, its factory outside Oslo remains idle as it attempts to secure funding to restart operations after the credit crunch forced layoffs late last year.

Ironically, one country not providing incentives to Think is Norway. The Norwegian government has rejected Think’s plea for a loan guarantee to help it raise capital. That had Think investor Wilber James, a venture capitalist with Rockport Capital Partners, fuming when Green Wombat ran into him at Fortune Magazine’s Brainstorm Green conference two weeks ago.

“The Norwegian government has made trillions from North Sea oil, and they can’t give Think $10 million!” said James, whose firm invested in Think last year and formed Think North America with Silicon Valley VC Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. He noted that three U.S. states, meanwhile, are offering tax breaks and cash in a bid to become the site of Think North America’s first U.S. factory. Oregon was one of the states, James said; he would not say what the other two were.

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Chinese electric carmaker eyes U.S.

Posted in electric cars, green cars, tagged , , , , on April 22, 2009| 17 Comments »

LAGUNA NIGUEL, Calif. — Chinese electric carmaker BYD will put an electric car on the road this year that goes 250 miles on a charge and intends to bring the vehicle to the United States, a key investor in the company said Tuesday.

“We want to introduce the car in the U.S., ” said Li Lu, founder of LL Investment Partners at Fortune Magazine’s Brainstorm Green conference in Southern California.

His Pasadena, Calif.-based firm owns 2.5% of BYD and was instrumental in getting Warren Buffett to invest in the electric car company, according to Fortune contributing editor Mark Gunther. (Read Gunther’s recent Fortune cover story on BYD here.)

During a panel discussion on electric car batteries, Lu said BYD could produce a battery that went 300 to 400 miles on a charge. “We can do a 300-mile battery today,” he said. “But it’s really heavy stuff, cuts into the space of the car. It’s a matter of what the consumer really needs.”

If BYD does move into the U.S., it will also build auto factories, Lu noted. “When we come to this country, we will do our manufacturing here.”

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Bill Ford: Gas tax, please.

Posted in electric cars, green cars, tagged , , , , on April 21, 2009| 98 Comments »

DANA POINT, Calif. — Have you driven a gas-guzzling planet-warming SUV lately? If so, it’s probably because gasoline prices have plunged in recent months and you’re more likely to trade up to a truck, Ford Motor Executive Chairman Bill Ford said Monday.

And he’s not happy about that.

“When gasoline went to $3.50 a gallon we saw a sea change in customer behavior,” Ford told Fortune Magazine managing editor Andy Serwer at Fortune’s Brainstorm Green conference in Orange County, Calif. “Now people are turning away from more fuel-efficient vehicles and taking the bigger vehicles.”

“I’ve been talking for five years now about the need for a gas tax,” he added. “We have to have some predictability on fuel pricing and that price signal has to be strong enough so customers” will continue buying smaller, fuel-efficient cars.” (Read more on Ford’s talk at Brainstorm Green.)

In other words, Ford Motor (F), General Motors (GM) and Chrysler won’t be able to kick their addiction to the profit margins that come from selling monster cars until consumers go cold turkey on cheap fuel.

Ford, who said he had been considered “something of a Bolshevik” in the auto industry for his early embrace of electric cars, said Detroit needs a floor under gasoline prices so it can make investments in alternative fuel vehicles.

“The worst thing for us is instability,” he said. “We need a much more stable planning horizon. That’s not just true for gasoline but for any fuel we use.”

Ford noted that when he joined the Ford board two decades ago he was told to stop “consorting” with suspected environmentalists. Times have changed in the car business.

“We haven’t had a lot of revolutions but boy are we now. I love it.”

Follow the Brainstorm: Green conference on Twitter at twitter.com/greenwombat and twitter.com/marcgunther.

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Think rolls into Austrian electric car market

Posted in carbon neutral, electric cars, environment, green cars, Think, Think Global, tagged , , , , on April 3, 2009| Leave a Comment »

Präsentation der Studie „Auswirkung von Elektrofahrzeugen auf die Stromwirtschaft“

photo: Think

Norwegian electric car maker Think has started shipping its City urban runabout to an Austria utility as part of a government project to test the impact of EVs on the power grid.

The €4.7 million ($6.3 million) Vlotte initiative is placing 100 electric vehicles with companies, municipal governments and individuals in Austria’s Bregenz region. The project is being managed by utility Vorarlberger Kraftwerke and will evaluate how well the cars perform in an area where most people drive an average 50 kilometers (31 miles) a day. The Think City has a range of about 180 kilometers (112 miles).

Solar arrays will be used to charge the plastic-bodied cars to ensure they remain carbon neutral, according to the utility. In 2010, Vlotte will offer electric cars for lease if there is sufficent demand from local residents.

Think CEO Richard Canny said Think is expected to supply most of the cars for the project.

It’s the latest deal for Think, which continues to seed the City across Europe despite financial problems that have stalled its Norwegian assembly plant. Earlier this month, Think signed an agreement to supply 500 cars to a Dutch auto leasing company and announced plans to open a factory in the United States in 2010.

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Think goes Dutch in deal for 500 electric cars

Posted in electric cars, green cars, Think, Think Global, tagged , , , , on March 18, 2009| 6 Comments »

thnk-goes-amsterdam77

photo: Think

For a company in the breakdown lane of near-bankruptcy, Norwegian electric carmaker Think keeps hitting the accelerator. On Wednesday, Think said it has signed an agreement to sell 500 of its City electric cars this year to a subsidiary of Mobility Service Netherlands, a Dutch automotive leasing company.

The deal follows Think’s announcement last week that it plans to open an assembly plant in the United States by 2010 to produce the urban runabout.

Think sales director Richard Waitz told Green Wombat that the company will supply cars to ElmoNet, a subsidiary of Mobility Service Netherlands that will lease only electric cars. Earlier this year the Dutch government launched a 10 million euro ($13 million) incentive program for electric cars.

“We’ve entered into a similar agreement in Austria,” Waitz said. That deal, signed last month, calls for Think to supply up to 100 cars to a consortium of Austrian companies.

First, however, Think must raise the capital to resume full production of the City. The Oslo company idled its Norwegian assembly plant and laid off workers late last year as the financial crisis cut off funding. Think obtained a $5.7 million bridge loan in January and said last week it expects to raise more money from its existing European and U.S. investors.

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Think to open U.S. electric car factory

Posted in electric cars, green cars, green policy, green startups, green tech, Tesla Motors, Think, Think Global, tagged , , , , on March 12, 2009| 18 Comments »

thnk-city-michigan-usa_imagelarge

photo: Think

Norwegian electric car company Think announced Thursday that it will open a factory in the United States in 2010 to produce its City urban runabout.

Think CEO Richard Canny, a former Ford executive, is in Ann Arbor, Mich., this week meeting with officials from eight states vying for the factory. But don’t put in your order just yet – only 2,500 cars will roll off the assembly line the first year and they will be reserved for demonstration projects and fleet sales.

“The U.S. is quickly overtaking Europe as an attractive market for EVs and is an ideal location to engineer and build EVs,” Canny said in a statement. “We see ourselves playing a small but potentially growing role in re-inventing the U.S. auto industry by bringing back new manufacturing jobs to the U.S.”  Think has not yet responded to Green Wombat’s inquiry about which states, other than Michigan, is in talks with the company for the factory.

How Think will finance its North American expansion remains an open question. Just three months ago the company was teetering on the edge of bankruptcy as the global financial crisis cut off capital and forced Think to idle its Norwegian factory and lay off workers. The company obtained $5.7 million interim financing in January and recalled some workers. A report on Treehugger Thursday cited sources that said Think was contemplating relocating to Sweden or the U.K.

Think spokeswoman Katinka Von Der Lippe told Green Wombat on Thursday that the interim financing has been extended but that the company is still seeking a new infusion of capital to resume full production of the City, a two-seater that goes 112 miles on a charge with a top speed of about 62 miles per hour.  Update: Think’s U.S. spokesman, Brendan Prebo, tells Green Wombat that Think will raise most of the new capital from its existing European and U.S. investors, which include General Electric (GE), so it can resume full production of the City in Norway.

The company said that it will apply for a low-interest loan from the U.S. Department of Energy under its Advanced Technology Vehicle Manufacturing program to help pay for the factory. Prebo declined to reveal the size of the DOE loan the company will seek but noted it “will be a substantial investment for Think” but small compared to what some of the big automakers want.

After the first-year startup phase, the U.S. factory will initially employ 300 workers and produce 16,000 cars annually, according to Think. Capacity would eventually be expanded to 60,000 cars and a workforce of 900. A research and development center will employ about 70 people.

But calling a Think facility a factory is somewhat misleading. It’s really an assembly plant and the one Green Wombat visited in 2007 in Aurskog, Norway, was more Ikea than Henry Ford, with plastic-bodied Think City models quietly gliding through clean well-lighted spaces.

The question for Think, Tesla Motors other EV startups is whether they can gain a foothold in the market before the major players big-foot them with their own electric and plug-in electric cars. Ford (F), General Motors (GM), Honda (HMC), Toyota (TM), Renault-Nissan and other global automakers all are accelerating plans to introduce electric vehicles.

Thursday’s announcement follows the formation of Think North America, unveiled in April 2008 at Fortune’s Brainstorm Green conference.  A bicoastal group of venture capital firms – Silicon Valley’s Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Boston’s Rockport Capital Partners – signed on as lead investors.

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Toshiba to power VW electric cars

Posted in electric cars, environment, green cars, green tech, tagged , , , , on February 13, 2009| 3 Comments »

scibToshiba and Volkswagen on Thursday unveiled a partnership to develop next-generation battery systems for electric cars.

For the Japanese conglomerate, the VW deal is just its latest green tech move.  Though known in the United States mainly for its laptop computers, Toshiba is the General Electric (GE) of Japan – it makes everything from consumer electronics to medical devices to nuclear power plant components.

In January, Toshiba announced that it was getting into the solar power plant business to build photovoltaic farms for utilities. The company also said it would install carbon-capture technology at a coal-fired power plant in Japan as part of a pilot project.

But its development of advanced battery technology could have the biggest impact.  Toshiba’s Super Charge ion Battery, or SCiB, can charge to 90% capacity in ten minutes, depending on its use, according to the company. Laptop versions of the SCiB can be discharged 6,000 times versus 500 times for a conventional battery. Larger versions of the battery are used to power electric bicycles and industrial equipment like forklifts. The real breakthrough will come if the SCiB can be adapted for electric cars.

“One of our big target markets is the automobile market,” Craig Hershberg, Toshiba’s director of environmental affairs, told Green Wombat. “We’re currently talking to one of the big automakers in the U.S.”

He declined to name the car company but General Motors (GM), Ford (F) and Chrysler have all accelerated electric car programs as have Toyota (TM) and Honda (HMC). Those talks probably will get a boost from the stimulus bill passed this week that gives a $7,500 tax credit to consumers who purchase plug-in electric hybrid vehicles.

The company is building a SCiB factory in Japan and is also exploring the potential of the SCiB to store electricity generated by solar power plants and wind farms.

“Toshiba aims to make SCiB a mainstay of its industrial systems and automotive products businesses worldwide,” the company said in a statement.

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Electric carmaker Think recalls workers

Posted in electric cars, enviro startups, Think, Think Global, tagged , , , , on January 23, 2009| 1 Comment »

thinkcity_006

photo: Think

Here’s a bit of good news from the otherwise dreary alternative automotive world: Norwegian electric carmaker Think has put 44 laid-off employees back to work following the completion of a round of interim financing.

In December, Think halted production of its City battery-powered urban runabout and laid off half its workforce as financing to expand the company’s operations dried up. Then last week Think announced that it had obtained a $5.7 million bridge loan from investors led by Ener1, a battery maker who is supplying the City with lithium-ion power plants.

The financing has been completed and Think said Friday that it had rehired 44 workers in management, sales and supplier operations. But Think is hardly out of the Norwegian woods yet. The company still needs to raise around $40 million to resume full-scale production of the City and proceed with its plans to sell the electric car in select European markets outside Norway before expanding to the United States. Think has raised more than $100 million from European and U.S. investors, including General Electric (GE) and Silicon Valley and East Coast venture capitalists.

“We are very content that this first visible step in our plan towards restart now is in place,” said Think CEO Richard Canny, a former Ford (F) executive, in a statement. “We still need to raise the permanent capital, but this first call-back signals both internally and externally that Think is committed and able to turn the situation into a positive direction for the company.”

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Better Place in deal for Canadian electric car network

Posted in alternative energy, Better Place, electric cars, enviro startups, environment, green cars, green financing, tagged , , , , , on January 15, 2009| 2 Comments »

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photo: Better Place

Electric cars, eh?

Silicon Valley startup Better Place on Thursday unveiled a deal with the government of Ontario – the Michigan of Canada – to build an electric car charging network in the automaking province. The announcement comes on the heels of agreements Better Place — the electric car infrastructure company founded by former software executive Shai Agassi — has made with governments in Australia, California, Denmark, Hawaii, Israel and Japan.  Better Place is working with the Canadian arm of Sydney-based infrastructure finance giant Macquarie to develop the Ontario electric car network.

“We need to be where the puck is going and in this case bring the puck to Ontario,” said Ontario minister of international trade Pupatello at a press conference in Toronto Thursday morning.

The Canadian deal comes amid turmoil in the nascent electric car industry. While EV companies like Think and Tesla struggle to survive the credit crisis, the big automakers – Ford (F), General Motors (GM), Toyota (TM), Honda (HMC) and Chrysler – have announced they’re accelerating plans to build electric cars and, in GM’s case, a battery-making factory.

On Thursday, the premier of Ontario, Dalton McGuinty, said his government will conduct a study on how to expedite the introduction of electric cars in the province. When the study is released in May, Better Place will detail its plan and investment timeline for building the network of charging posts and battery-swapping stations.

Better Place, said McGuinty,  “is a model with the power to reshape our province. It’s going to create new green jobs, it’s going to make life more convenient for car drivers of the future and it’s going to signal to the world that Ontario is electric-car friendly and will make it a more attractive place to build electric cars.”

Agassi has now committed to raising billions in capital to simultaneously build charging networks in five far-flung countries over the next three years. When Green Wombat talked to Agassi in November after he signed a deal to build a $1 billion San Francisco Bay Area charging network, he insisted the financial crisis would not hamper efforts to raise funding.

Under Better Place’s system, consumers will buy the electric cars while Better Place will own the batteries, charging subscribers to its network a fee per-mile (or kilometer) driven. Renault-Nissan is supplying electric cars for Better Place’s other networks. An electric Nissan SUV – emblazoned with little wind turbines – was parked at the press conference but company spokeswoman Julie Mullins said an electric car supplier had not yet been selected for Ontario. “Ultimately, we expect a wide range of vehicle makes and models to be available to drivers,” she wrote in an e-mail. “We are currently in talks with several car companies.”

Ontario-based Bullfrog Power will provide renewable energy – 80% hydro, 20% wind – for the Better Place network. “We’re going to create a virtual oil field across the province,” said Agassi.

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