In front of us is another attempt of an electromobile. The car is aimed at replacing a traditional 5-seat passenger car. The only thing to worry about is the spreading of electricity refilling stations along the roads.

In Geneva the Norwegian company TH!NK came up with the concept under the name Ox. It is an utterly electric car made for 5 passengers. No, better to put it this way – it is a prototype of a new serial car which is to be launched in 2011.

Sounds interesting, isn’t it? Serial electromobiles are rare in the modern world. And to tell you the truth in the majority of cases it is tiny ugly carts. And if there springs up an electric car which is close to a normal car in all the parameters – it turns out to be a sky-high expensive sportcar like Tesla Roadster.

The construction of OX is a module one and resembles GM Autonomy developments. The lower part of the car can be used for a number of models. It features battery compartments. The upper part of the body features the power cage of the interior which can be furnished with various panels. It is interesting that these panels are mainly non-painted plastic. According to the creators’ idea these panels will be recycled after the car is utilized.

The car weights 1.5 tons, from which 350 kg - are the batteries. The basic battery variant is Li-Ion accumulators by the company A123 Systems.

The car’s electric engine which spins the from wheels has the nominal power of 60 bhp and the power of 100 kW. This enables not to 100 km/h in 8.5 seconds. The max speed is 130 km/h. The power reserve – 200 km (in a city – 250 km where the additional power reserve is enabled by power recuperation while braking). OX’s full recharging from an average socket (220 volt/16 A) takes 12 hours, but the batteries can be 80% full within one hour!

As an option the Norwegians are planning to equip the car with ZEBRA batteries by the Swiss company Mes Dea. These batteries have a number of advantages:

• Higher specific capacity
• Higher specific power
• Reasonable price

But there is at least one significant drawback – these are “hot” batteries, their work mode is 300 degrees Celsius. With these batteries the car can drive up to 450 km on a single charge.

In fact it doesn’t matter if all the gems of the car are preserved when it gets a serial version but not a concept. It seems that some of the options can be rejected in order to decrease the cost. For instance, top batteries (not being extremely powerful they enable extra drive in sunny weather) or keyless car access which recognizes the driver and adjusts the position of the steering wheel, seats, mirrors, turns on the favorite radio station and shows the received emails. Satellite navigation and constant Internet connection means regular car-driver communication as well as the access to a number of services.

Yet there is a question: is the little-known company TH!NK ready for serial production? Don’t worry. The company has already had an experience. The company has a serial model City. Thus the Norwegian roads carry about 1200 cars built by the company.

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