The Valmet Automotive plant in Uusikaupunki, part of the Metso engineering group, is to begin production of Think electric vehicles later this year.
Valmet Automotive is also to become a minor shareholder in the Norwegian company behind the cars, Think Global.
According to Metso, the plant will be manufacturing several thousand electric cars each year. During the autumn the collaboration will employ around fifty workers and more than a hundred in the course of next year.
The Think City is a two-seater (or 2+2) electric car primarily for urban use, but is also suitable for driving on the highway and has a range of around 140 kilometres on a single charge. The car already has a sales network in place in Europe and is ready for mass production.
Valmet Automotive will also be launching assembly this year of the Fisker Karma plug-in luxury hybrid (manufactured by Fisker Automotive) and Garia electric golf carts.
At present the Uusikaupunki plant, established in 1968 by Saab-Scania and the Finnish state-owned engineering company Valmet, is producing Boxster and Cayman sports cars under licence from Porsche.
For many years Uusikaupunki also manufactured Saabs, but the last of the Swedish cars rolled off the production line in 2003.
