The Stonecutters Have Relented!

My green nerd and my late adopter are at war over the subject of this Businessweek article, The Electric Car Lives:

An electrified people's car for the 21st century, the Ox is a preview of Think's next-generation production vehicle, due out in 2011. Roughly the size of a Toyota Prius, the Ox can travel between 125 and 155 miles before needing a recharge, and zips from zero to 60 miles per hour in about 8.5 seconds. Its lithium-ion batteries can be charged to 80% capacity in less than an hour, and slender solar panels integrated into the roof power the onboard electronics. Inside, the hatchback includes a bevy of high-tech gizmos such as GPS navigation, a mobile Internet connection, and a key fob that lets drivers customize the car's all-digital dashboard. Pricing has yet to be announced, but the company's current vehicles cost less than $25,000.

They drop the $25,000 price tag to make you salivate, but that's the alleged price for their current European offering, the City, roughly the size of two refrigerator boxes stapled together. Also, according to their Web site, the price is 20,000 euros, which, at press time, equals $31,200.

The Ox will be bigger, and contain doodads, which will surely drive up the price. My WAG is a $40k car at launch, which is not "people's car" money. It probably won't become that way by 2011 either, when the Ox is planned to go into production.

They claim they'll be profitable at 10,000 vehicles a year. If this does what they say it will do, they should have no problem selling 10,000 in their first year. I'm more interested in, say, Ox #100,000 when they've worked out the first generation bugs, and economies of scale have lowered the price.

An Ox will likely not replace Groovy. But maybe it will replace Groovy's replacement.