Nagoya Institute of Technology
August 27, 2009, 3:26 pm
Is Think Still a Norwegian Car Company?
By TODD WOODY
Th!nk The electric car maker emerged from bankruptcy protection. But is it still a Norwegian enterprise?
The Norwegian electric car maker Think is back on the road.
The company on Thursday said it had exited bankruptcy protection and secured $47 million in new financing to restart production of the Think City, a highway-capable urban runabout with a range of about 112 miles.
Think had shut down its assembly line outside of Oslo late last year when the global financial crisis cut off access to new capital.
But is Think still a Norwegian automaker? The company did get some local street cred Thursday: among its new shareholders is Investinor, an investment fund backed by the Norwegian government.
Still, in another sign of the globalization of the nascent electric car industry, the Think City will now be made in Finland at the plant of one of its new investors, Valmet Automotive. (Valmet assembles the Porsche Boxster and Cayman and will begin producing the Fisker Karma plug-in hybrid electric sports sedan.)
Think’s Norwegian assembly facility will be shuttered and its 85 employees dismissed.
An existing investor, the American company Ener1, which owns the lithium-ion battery maker EnerDel, now becomes Think’s largest shareholder with 31 percent of the company. EnerDel supplies batteries to Think, and in July, the two companies began a joint venture to sell electric car drivetrains.
Other Think investors include General Electric and the Silicon Valley venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.
The company’s primary market is Europe, but Think plans to build a factory in the United States and has applied for an Energy Department loan guarantee to finance the project.
Think, which was formerly owned by Ford, took pains Thursday to emphasize its Norwegian roots. “Think, however, remains a truly Norwegian company, with its senior management, sales, marketing, design and engineering staff still located at the company’s Oslo headquarters,” the company said in a statement.
Think’s chief executive, Richard Canny, born in Australian, added, “This means we can restart production of the Think City as soon as possible.”
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