Daimler Partners with Tesla to Build Small Electric Car

May 20th, 2009

It’s time to play Catch Mitsubishi If We Can.

Via: CNET:

German automotive giant Daimler has invested in electric-car company Tesla Motors and plans to use Tesla’s battery packs in its Smart electric car due later this year.

At a Tuesday press conference held at the Daimler museum in Stuttgart, Germany, Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Daimler management board member Thomas Weber said the contract between the two companies calls for joint collaboration on the Smart electric car and future models.

Daimler has invested a “double-digit million-dollar sum” to acquire about a 10 percent stake in California-based Tesla, Weber said.

“We are about to combine the best of the old and new school,” Weber said during a press conference, which was Webcast. “We are both deeply convinced that electric powertrains will play a major role in sustainability mobility.”

The two companies last year announced that Tesla would supply the lithium ion battery for the Electric Smart EV, a small town car. Telsa designs and makes the packs using battery cells used in consumer electronics.

Daimler plans to test those cars this year and to mass-produce the Electric Smart EV in 2012, Weber said.

The company, which has been working on electric-vehicle technology since the 1970s, chose to partner and invest in Tesla to help Daimler bring cars to market quickly, Weber added. “The first priority was to find the quickest and most straightforward solution,” he said.

The technical collaboration calls for Tesla to supply battery packs and electric powertrain, and for Daimler to offer auto manufacturing and design expertise in a range of areas, such as safety and mass production, Musk said during the press conference.

Posted in Economy, Energy | Top Of Page

3 Responses to “Daimler Partners with Tesla to Build Small Electric Car”

  1. realitydesign says:

    I’m still waiting for that air car that the Indian company produced to hit the market. It was ‘ready to go’ as of two years ago. Hmmm. Where is it?

    Runs on air.

  2. Kevin says:

    http://zeropollutionmotors.us/ That’s the U.S. version.

    I prefer to think of it as running on whatever power source runs the air compressor that fills the tanks. Things like air and hydrogen, in these contexts, aren’t power sources. They’re batteries.

    So, you can have a coal fired compressed air car. A nuclear powered compressed air car. A wind powered compressed air car, etc. etc.

  3. Eileen says:

    Tesla rocks. It also has a big LOAN from DOE to develop their electric vehicles. I wish for their vision for electricfying personal vehicles to reach way beyond into mass transit.
    Recharging stations everywhere the sun shines with a blue solar panel that’s picked up along the way when the power runs out. Kind of like a parking meter.

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