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EU:Greenpeace protests Ford's plans to destroy Norwegian-built electric cars

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#1 ·
Greenpeace protests Ford's plans to destroy Norwegian-built electric cars

By Doug Mellgren / Associated Press

OSLO, Norway - - Greenpeace activists scaled the walls of Ford Motor Co.’s Norwegian headquarters Tuesday to protest plans to destroy hundreds of non-polluting electric cars.

In late-2002, Ford pulled out of the Norwegian company Think Nordic, which builds electric cars, and announced it would stop selling electric vehicles in the United States.

The 14 activists climbed onto the roof of the building and its walls with banners reading “Ford: Don’t Crush Think” to protest plans to destroy up to 400 used Think cars in the United States and Britain.

Ford had leased the Norwegian-built cars to customers for up to three years, as a test fleet in the United States, said Niel Golightly, Ford’s vice president for communications in Europe.

He said by telephone that it was never the intention for them to be used longer, because Ford only had permission from U.S. federal authorities to test them in the United States for three years.

“We don’t understand them proceeding with plans to destroy them when there are waiting lists of people interested in buying them,” Greenpeace protest leader Truls Gulowsen said. He said the activists were demanding a meeting with senior Ford executives.

Greenpeace suspects Ford wants to eliminate competition to its traditional vehicles powered by fossil fuels, Gulowsen said.

However, Golightly said the carmaker, based in Dearborn, is actively seeking to find other technologies for cleaner-running cars and trucks, including hydrogen fuel cells and the gas-electric hybrid vehicles.

He said Ford, and most of the industry, has concluded that battery powered vehicles are not the answer.

Golightly said a number of small companies had offered to buy the vehicles, but that Ford concluded the cost of shipping them to Europe, converting the vehicles to national standards and refurbishing them would be too high.

One of the companies, Oslo-based El-Bil Norge, had made such an offer, which company spokesman Hans Kvistle said Ford did not even appear to have considered. The company builds battery vehicles, and sells used ones.

The Think Nordic company was taken over by Kamkorp Microelectronics in 2002. About 1,000 of the vehicles have been built.
 
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#2 ·
Global Auto Report
Detroit News staff reports and wire services

Norway may get used Ford electric cars

OSLO — Ford Motor Co. may avoid having to crush about 350 Think City electric cars that can’t be reused in the United States when leases end if Norway accepts them. Ford, which sold the Think unit’s assets to Kamkorp Ltd. in 2002, doesn’t want to be held liable for the vehicles. The cars don’t meet U.S. safety standards and got a waiver for only the lease period. Ford leased the cars in New York and California for as long as three years before selling Think. Ford has an offer from Norwegian company Elbil Norge to buy the cars.
 
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