It seems nearly every month an electric vehicle company with a funny sounding name announces their version of a battery-powered soapbox racer for the edgy, enlightened and conscious urban driver. Rarely, if ever, do any of these companies announce significant partnerships with a leading battery company and a global conglomerate, design a car you wouldn’t be embarrassed to drive, or make credible projections about product delivery in major markets. Norway’s TH!NK manages to check all three of these boxes with it’s zippy TH!NK city and SUV lookalike TH!NK Ox.

After Ford dropped the company as a subsidiary in 2002 (but not before investing close to $150 million in its technology), TH!NK wandered around in the wilderness before raising close to $25 million in 2007 from a group of American and Norwegian investors including Sundt AS, Centra-group, Home Invest AS, Canica AS, the Heinz Family Trust and Wintergreen Advisers. With these funds, TH!NK brought on board Porsche to help with its factory design and committed to deploying next generation lithium ion batteries in nearly all of its vehicles.

Since then, TH!NK has partnered with battery leader A123 Systems and General Electric, which recently invested $4 million in the car company, and announced plans to begin selling its TH!NK city in Norway and the UK within the first six months of 2008. The company plans to hit its 10,000-vehicle production target in 2009 and to begin selling into major markets in the U.S. by 2010.

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