The Ford TH!NK was a line of electric vehicles produced by the TH!NK Mobility, then an enterprise of Ford Motor Company

Ford Motor Company

Ford Motor Company is an American multinational automaker based in Dearborn, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit. The automaker was founded by Henry Ford and incorporated on June 16, 1903. In addition to the Ford and Lincoln brands, Ford also owns a small stake in Mazda in Japan and Aston Martin in the UK...

. The short-lived line included four models: the TH!NK Neighbor and the TH!NK City, small electric automobile

Automobile

An automobile, autocar, motor car or car is a wheeled motor vehicle used for transporting passengers, which also carries its own engine or motor...

s, and the TH!NK Bike Traveler and the TH!NK Bike Fun, electric-powered motorized bicycle

Motorized bicycle

A motorized bicycle, motorbike, cyclemotor, or vélomoteur is a bicycle with an attached motor and transmission used either to power the vehicle unassisted, or to assist with pedaling. Since it always retains both pedals and a discrete connected drive for rider-powered propulsion, the motorized...

. The TH!NK line suffered from recalls and poor sales and was cancelled in 2002. Ford sold its stock, and the resulting company, Think Global, now produces electric cars in Norway.

TH!NK City

The two door TH!NK City could seat a driver and a passenger and had a top speed of 56 miles per hour (90.1 km/h). The car had an acceleration speed of zero to 30 miles per hour (48.3 km/h) in seven seconds and weighed 2,075 pounds. The model was 9.8 feet (3 m) long, 5.25 feet (1.6 m) wide, and 5.1 feet (1.6 m) high.

TH!NK Neighbor

The Neighbor was designed to meet the NHTSA specification for Neighborhood Electric Vehicles. Design and manufacture was unrelated to the Th!nk City. The Neighbor was initially offered in two models, a two-seater and a four-seater, with a two-passenger utility truck version offered near the end of production. The TH!NK Neighbor had a fixed roof over an open enclosure; a rain cover was optionally available to protect the passengers from the elements. The normal top speed was governored to 25 miles per hour (40.2 km/h) per NHTSA requirements, and it also had a "turf" mode that set its maximum speed at 15 miles per hour (24.1 km/h) for golf course use. Many options were designed for use on the golf course: it featured a bag rack, a holder for scorecards, tees, and balls, and a club washer. Additionally, there was a trunk option for the four-passenger version that could double as a cooler.

Disposal controversy

A major controversy erupted when Ford decided to crush TH!NK City cars in the U.S. when each vehicle's lease expired. After protesting by environmentalist groups, including a Greenpeace

Greenpeace

Greenpeace is a non-governmental environmental organization with offices in over forty countries and with an international coordinating body in Amsterdam, The Netherlands...

rally on the roof of Ford's Norway offices, Ford decided to ship the excess vehicles to Norway.

External links

• Official Ford TH!NK page
• A review of the Sport Version of the TH!NK Neighbor at TropiCar, Inc.