REPORT: Think will build U.S. plant in Indiana, appoints two new execs
by Sebastian Blanco on Nov 18th 2009 at 12:59PM 
Th!nk City - Click above for high-res image gallery
Think Global is deepening its roots in Indiana. The City electric car already uses batteries made by local company Ener1, which also owns 31 percent of Think Global. When the Think starts up production again (it was shut down while the company went through bankruptcy and then restructured) the cars are scheduled to be built at new minority shareholder Valmet Automotive's factory in Uusikaupunki, Finland. Think has 2,300 outstanding orders for the City and Valmet plans on building twice that many City models next year.
But Think also wants to build cars in the U.S. in the future, and Ener1 chairman and CEO Charles Gassenheimer have told Reuters that the plant will be located somewhere in Indiana. Details will be announced in the coming weeks. The company has applied for a U.S. government loan to help build the plant.
Think also announced two new senior appointments today (official press release after the jump). Jan Brentebråten, who previously worked for Ford and Mazda in Europe, has been appointed director of marketing, sales and service for Think Global, and Helge Nerland, previously a senior corporate adviser at Fondsfinans ASA, will become the CFO of Think Global.
UPDATE: Maybe not.
Gallery: Th!nk City
[Sources: Reuters; Think]
PRESS RELEASE:
THINK'S GLOBAL EXPANSION CONTINUES WITH WORLD-CLASS CLEANTECH AND AUTOMOTIVE EXECUTIVE APPOINTMENTS
- NEW EXECUTIVES BRENTEBRÅTEN AND NERLAND BRING EXTENSIVE EXPERIENCE FROM MAZDA, FORD AND TOMRA
- JAN BRENTEBRÅTEN APPOINTED DIRECTOR – MARKETING, SALES AND SERVICE
- HELGE NERLAND APPOINTED CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER
OSLO, Norway, November 18, 2009 – THINK, the Norwegian electric vehicle (EV) maker, announces a further strengthening of its management team today with two new senior appointments from the automotive and renewable energy industries.
Jan Brentebråten, a senior leader in the European automotive industry, is appointed Director – Marketing, Sales and Service, THINK Global. He has previously held a number of senior positions with Mazda and Ford in Europe, including the managing directorships of Ford Netherlands, Ford Norway and Ford Scandinavia and the presidency of Mazda Motors Deutschland and Mazda Europe.
Most recently, Jan was Director, Sustainability & Alternative Fuel Vehicle Strategy – Ford of Europe. In this role he oversaw the development and implementation of Ford's European sustainability strategies and plans, including a concerted lobbying and relationship building effort within Europe and a number of fleet and retail sustainability initiatives.
Helge Nerland, who comes with over 20 years' leadership experience in the finance world, is appointed CFO, THINK Global. He was most recently Senior Corporate Advisor at Fondsfinans ASA with special responsibility for renewable energy projects and energy saving technologies.
Helge was also previously CFO at Tomra Systems ASA, a world leader in consumable beverage recycling systems. Working for Tomra in Scandinavia and the USA, he oversaw enormous growth in revenues and market capitalisation during his reign as CFO dating back to the late 1980s.
THINK CEO, Richard Canny, said: "We are making great progress in establishing our new state-of-the-art production facilities in Finland and rolling-out sales into new markets across Europe. These two new appointments will help us accelerate our growth and consolidate our leading position in the global EV market."
He continued: "We have the world's first ready and available urban full battery electric vehicle in the THINK City, and with Jan Brentebraten's sales and marketing might behind it, we expect to quickly start growing our order bank of 2,300 vehicles. We also have an excellent CFO in Helge Nerland to keep our newly vitalised finances in good order. I can't think of a better-qualified financier, and one with a specialty in renewable energy, to do this job."
Both appointments are effective immediately.
About THINK:
THINK is a pioneer in electric vehicles and a leader in electric vehicle technology, developed and proven over 18 years. It is one of the few companies that has a 'ready-to-market' fully electric vehicle – the THINK City. With its market-leading range, driveability and recyclability, the THINK City is the first vehicle of its type to be granted pan-European regulatory safety approval and CE certification. THINK is also a leader in electric drive-system technology, and was the first to market a 'plug and play' mobility solution in the business-to-business sector. With its Scandinavian origins and sustainability mindset, THINK is one of the most carbon efficient car companies in the world.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Stew 3:50PM (11/18/2009)
Hooray! This is the one I've been wanting to make it to the US the most.
Stew
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HenkFromHolland 4:45PM (11/18/2009)
I don't want to disappoint you, but here in Holland it's for sale at
€ 39.000.--, which would be $ 58.000.-- !
Richard 6:17PM (11/18/2009)
It looks like a Tonka toy. It should come with a windup in the back. Ugly, practical, but yet ugly. Sorry, aside from the early adopters, I can't see the success of this small city car. It screams social reject. A car, in the USA, is one's identity. It's a reflection of one's personality. This somehow doesn't portray a high status image. I do hope I'm wrong on this one.
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Mike!!ekiM 8:45PM (11/18/2009)
What you see as ugly, others will see as cute.
But, yes, it's got to be mass produced to get the price down.
Maybe, that's why toyota's Prius is a good model,
with hybrids, with every generation you can put in a small pack of more advanced batteries, bringing batteries into the product mix as the price drops.
I Think this car is great, but, I'm not rich.
Bus Rand 9:54PM (11/18/2009)
An astronomically expensive glorified golf cart capable of carrying 2 passengers or 1 passenger and some cargo. A vehicle you're likely to get squashed flat by the average mini-van in any accident involving speeds greater than 40 mph. Very impressive. All for the sake of climate alarmists.
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Mark 8:37AM (11/19/2009)
I guess you would say the same about the Tesla? No?
Climate alarmists? So you don't believe in climate change? So please tell me what PHD in climate science you hold to come to that conclusion? Do you know more than NASA and global scientific concensous? Wow!
Bus Rand 11:24AM (11/19/2009)
No Phd here Mark, how about you? I was however on the other side of the fence on this issue 20 yrs. ago. I've made a genuine effort to educate myself on this subject since then (rather than absorb whatever I'm told) and discovered about 10-15 yrs. ago that I had been misled. The number of examples I've seen since then demonstrating the complete absence of any solid scientific evidence, supporting man-made global warming, on any significant level (never mind catastrophic) has been mind boggling. The people who really know what they're talking about DO NOT support this idiocy at all.
Yes, there was a director for NASA who spouted off this crap (who also promptly received $200 mil. from the Heinz-Kerry foundation) and there are others in the organization who believe it as well. There has also been many in-depth studies done by NASA that does anything but support climate alarmism. One of them was on the solar flares generated by, and the solar cycles of the sun. They determined that these have a very significant impact on our temperature. Gee, the SUN effecting temp., wow, go and figure. This data has all but been ignored by the alarmists because it doesn't jive with their Nostrodamas style predictions, not a sinlge one of which has been even remotely correct since 1975.
The IPCC, winner of %50 of the nobel peace prize (that couldn't possibly be political) admitted in their own study, that not only did they know nothing about the effects of the sun on temp., but didn't bother to research it as a possibility at all and ignored NASA's findings as well. How very scientific of them. Alarmists were called out a couple of years ago on flat out lying and manipulating data to try to prove their has been a 3-3.5 deg. increase in the last 100 yrs. They had to admit they were WRONG!!!!!!
So not only have the 10 yr./ 10 deg. predictions they made in the last 25 yrs. been utter folly, but they can't even prove there has been any significant change in temp. in the last 100 yrs.!!!!! The last armagedon 10 deg. fry date is due in 2015. Care to make a wager on that one Mark? Maybe they'll go back to cooling being our fault since that is actually what seems to be happening. That was their original wild prediction in 1975. The last time Co2 was this high (long before the industrial age) it ushered in an ICE AGE.....not warming, so that will probably be their next move.
Dan Frederiksen 12:54PM (11/20/2009)
Think goes bankrupt on a regular basis and only stays alive because new people come along and feed it huge amounts of money and they still dont have steady production.
they've gone through more money than Tesla. something like 200 million$
sure sounds pathetic to me. someone else should get the money
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