Electric Car News 'Round the World

[MountainDon]

Today's newspaper (Albuquerque Journal) had a Business Section front page story about Tesla contracting with "Think" a Norwegian Electric car manufacturer to supply them with a version of the Tesla battery. This was of local interest as Tesla has planned on building an assembly plant in Albuquerque.

There was one detail in the article right  near the end that shocked the bejeebers out of me. I'll copy the statement below the link for those who don't want to read an entire article.

BTW, Think has been in bankruptcy once already.

The link is to the virtually same article in LA Times as the ABQJournal.com is one of those news sites that requires one to register before reading; free but a PITA.

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-battery22may22,1,4175937.story?track=crosspromo&coll=la-headlines-business&ctrack=1&cset=true

The shocker paragraph...   "But Siry said that electric vehicles in Norway are exempted from a [highlight]100% tax on motor vehicles that[/highlight][highlight] [/highlight][highlight]doubles the price of other cars[/highlight]. The tax break could amount to a subsidy of $20,000 or more per car, depending on Think's retail pricing."     I find that difficult to believe, tho wouldn't be surprised. A quick web search didn't come up with anything other than car purchase taxes are "Very high in some countries (Denmark, Finland and Norway)"

Think's home      http://en.think.no/

http://blogs.cars.com/kickingtires/2007/03/think_electric_.html
http://www.bjreview.com.cn/life/txt/2007-03/14/content_59189.htm

[Leo]

worlds fastest electric boat 70mph on 144 volts of batteries worlds fastest cars and links.http://www.suckamps.com/

[Amanda_931]

Norway's pretty serious about conserving oil.

[benevolance]

Yeah

Too bad there was not some incentive to jump start conservation and changing of the guard in the sense that it has to be oil or nothing else in the automotive industry...

Mr Oil would not approve of taxes on fossil fuel based vehicles...Or vehicles that give poor mileage

And upto this point in time....Mr. Oil has gotten what Mr. oil has wanted