News from Bloomberg:
Ford Motor Co., the second-biggest U.S. automaker, plans to crush and recycle Think City electric cars being returned from leases because the low-pollution vehicles don't meet U.S. safety standards.
The automaker, which sold the Think unit in 2002, got a waiver from U.S. regulators for the cars only for the lease period, said Vicki Northrup, a former Think manager now in Ford's internal communications section. Ford leased about 300 of the cars in New York and California for as long as three years.
Ford shifted its emphasis for fuel-efficient, low-pollution vehicles to gasoline-electric and hydrogen fuel-cell models, and sold Norway-based Think to Kamkorp Ltd. Electric motors and related parts from the cars being scrapped will be salvaged and sent to U.K.-based Kamkorp, Northrup said in an interview.
Some customers, who leased the cars as an alternative to gasoline-powered vehicles, are unhappy that they can't keep the Thinks. ``They're going to take my car in a month and there's nothing I can do,'' said Marc Geller, a San Francisco free-lance photographer who leased a City for 34 months.
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