Mercedes, Smart to Sell Electric Cars in 2010
Over the last few months, several big car makers, including Nissan, Subaru and Mitsubishi, have announced plans to produce all-electric cars before the end of the decade, or soon after. Now Daimler has announced that it to plans to jump on the growing EV bandwagon, with plans to roll-out a Mercedes-Benz electric car in 2010. According to Chief Executive Dieter Zetsche, the company also plans to offer an electric Smart car in the same year.
At this stage, it’s unclear whether the cars will be based on an existing model, or on a completely new platform. If the former, it’s likely that the Mercedes EV will be based on either an A-Class or B-Class, as is the case with their fuel-cell prototype (pictured below).
As far as the Smart model goes, there is currently a fleet of 100 first-generation Smart electric cars running in London, and it’s a fair bet that the new cars will be at least roughly based on these.
No decision has been made regarding the price for the EV models. According to Zetsche, “That depends on whether we sell the batteries with the car or lease them. The willingness (on the part of consumers) to pay more is limited.”
The company is also in talks with Shai Agassi’s Project Better Place regarding his plans to introduce large scale EV recharging infrastructures at several locations across the world.
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Image Credits - Mercedes-Benz and Wikimedia Commons
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looks like holly just read the article in wired magazine about prius vs hummer. yes, it takes more to produce it, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t longer term benefits. it takes significantly less energy to use the prius, when considering tires, oil, fuel, etc. electric cars will be costly at first, and as they get more efficient, it will be logical. they will emit less than oil burning cars only if the electricity comes from clean sources of energy. home solar is a viable option these days and more and more windmills are going up across the country.
there are multiple issues we want to address by moving away from oil. one is the obvious issues with the environment. cleaner energy use is more responsible in the long run. the other is political. we have a very real interest in reducing our dependence on other unstable countries for a resource we need so badly (energy) as we grow more and more and the world demands more energy. there is no 1 answer to either issue, it will take a variety of alternative methods of transportation and energy sources.
It’s about time electric cars started coming onto the market in full force. The sad thing is, GM produced a slew of electric cars in the 1990s that were doing quite well, until they were recalled. Just think where we’d be now if those cars had been allowed to stay on the road and developments had proceeded from there? Also, a small company in Texas has been working on a new model for years (see an interesting article). If you’re interested in the history of electric cars in the U.S. you should also see Who Killed the Electric Car? It’s a downright infuriating documentary.
Holly: the Prius does not take more energy over its lifespan. The CNW marketing group that did that study made many unreasonable assumptions in their analysis.
For more deatils see http://crave.cnet.com/8301-1_105-9750840-1.html and “Hummer versus Prius: ‘Dust to Dust’ Report Misleads the Media and Public with Bad Science” at http://www.pacinst.org/topics/integrity_of_science/case_studies/hummer_vs_prius.pdf
Hopefully they will be sold in Canada, as domestic EVs are too low speed (not street legal). Mike Travaline, Toronto, ON, Canada
Price of these cars is going to be an issue for some time to come. Maybe with better and cheaper technology the prices will come down which will drive volumes.
But we need more than one technology to cut our overall dependence on oil. Hydrogen may at some point become a viable option, who knows.
The Hummer vs. Prius argument has been debunked so many times. Not true. Look at northern Alberta to see the environmental catastrophe it takes to fuel that Hummer. Look at a steel mine. If you can make three Prius vehicles with the steel of one Hummer, well, it’s pretty obvious.
Yes, making anything is a dirty business. Let’s try to be less dirty about it.
There is a very large advantage to an electrical vehicle. That is the flexibility of the input energy source. With a gasoline-powered vehicle, if gasoline becomes unavailable, sorry, get out and push. With an electrically powered vehicle, the input energy can be coal, natural gas, solar (either PV or heat cycle), hydroelectric (large or small scale). In addition, when you depress the brake pedal in most production EV’s and even some people’s DIY conversions, you recover up to 70% of the kinetic energy stored as speed of your vehicle. With a gasser, you heat up the brake pads and waste it - you cannot refill the gas tank as you go down the hill with your foot on the brakes.
As for production in 2010, that is very reasonable given the certification requirements and timelines. This is actually quite aggressive.
Existing off peak electric grid capacity is sufficient to support conversion of over 84% of existing fleet to Prius plug in hybrid. Saving well over 5 million Bbls. of imported oil use per daywith over $200 Billion of savings per year. Average $.10 per Kw-hr translates to about $.75 per gallon for equivalent energy consumption. That’s the good news.
http://www.calcars.org/calcars-news/657.html
The bad news is the batteries are $10,000 a pop for 20mile EV range. If the battery life is 8 years, then the battery cost is $1250/Year. Energy production is somewhere between .5 (20 mile ev range) and 1 gallon (40mile ev range) per day. At 20 mile EV range/day, this means the battery cost of $1250 divided by 180 gollons of energy equivalent, equals $6.94/gallon for the battery cost. The electric recharge at $.75 needs to be added on, taking the total cost to about $7.75/gallon of energy equivalent. But it is a domestic sourced energy supply.
Others, can substitute their own battery cost estimates and estimated life to come up with equivalent costs.
Yes, I want one now also. Just think how much I will spend at $75.00 a fill up by 2010
We saw one of these on the highway last week in Indiana… Looks fantastic.. got around pretty quick too.. I was impressed with the looks and how it seemed to handle corners..
I WANT ONE NOW!!!
With the gas prices out of site, why not have something we can get better mileage on. How about the compressed air ones, too…???