Tesla Battery Biz Put on Back Burner, Th!nk To Get Energy Elsewhere

Back in May Tesla announced it would be selling batteries to Th!nk Global for its revived City electric car. Seemed a great synergy at the time. Now CNet is reporting that Tesla won't be supplying Th!nk with batteries after all. Tesla Energy Group is on hold, while TeslaMotors concentrates on getting the delayed Roadster produced.

Th!nk Global has therefore had to to look elsewhere for batteries. A deal was announced yesterday with EnerDel, an Indiana subsidiary of Ener1 and Lithium battery manufacturer. This means if Th!nk has settled on Lithium for all the new cars, it won't be producing until late 2008. The deal calls for prototype batteries to be delivered in March 08 and preproduction batteries in July. If, on the other hand, they still intend to produce cars with the Swiss Zebra battery, perhaps cars will start rolling off the Norwegian assembly line sooner. Time, increasing amounts of it, will tell.