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).
- » See also: Is the Renault-Nissan Alliance Going in Two Different Electric Car Directions?
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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
An electric motor, three moving parts, lasts an owners lifetime, transferable vehicle to vehicle, a rechargeable, recyclable battery pack, a rebuildable plastic and carbon fiber body, a couple of total re-build shops, minus planned obsolescence, minus short, 5 or 6 year design centers, minus annual model change propaganda, minus crooked sales/dealership rip-off shops, and we have resolved a huge part of the wasted resources in our country and reduced the automobile to a practical convenience for transportation purposes only! Now build the intercity Obama-Bullet trains to reduce long trips, and air travel, and we are almost completely off of Oil, and right now our oil is all imported, a big minus sign on the balance sheet! Nuclear powered ships for commerce are not out of the question, an definitely cheaper than oil or coal powered ships. Oil used for jets for national defense - the last frontier for oil! Now we have a sensible re-arrangement of the current state of affairs, and a newly formulated “American Dream” But: we must give up our romantic attachment to the V-8 piston engine and its fabulous roar to life every time we turn the key, and it won’t be easy, she was certainly grand and served us well! Gentlemen, start your wind turbine , the electrics are here!
Lets get old route 66 and the nearby interstates wired up for charge stations. California,Arizona,New Mexico,Texas(gonna be a tough one) Oklahoma.Missouri,Illinois. Lets connect the east and west and take the world lead. Its time for the USA to rise above the dark pools of texas and take the world lead. I assure you if the usa does not the EU -12 will.
Cars industry its just here to move you like any other industry, the problem is like any other to, it takes more than what give back to you, like when u are at work, U produce 100 and bring with U 10, its a good business indeed, Toys R US, look at the homes today, they have a space in the house just for toys, not talking about the garages, full of crap, and people is paying an extra licence to park the cars on the street. Now is not them is you, until people suport them, its like listening to an antiamerican, saying that in a jealously way that they ar the biggest polluters in the world, but they promote them to be, they feel so stupid when the replay is well u consume annything that is american even your pants belt, and a million things that is american. its just the way that goes, people usualy see what is outside of them, never whats inside of them. but they don´t realise that over consuming, just take people into more needs faster and with more dificulties. make it easy make it more ecológical learn from mother nature, leave acordingly to the day light, and not day and night.Its all about energy and energy production side effects that is making a diference till people take a break and stop to ask for more then what is capable to produce.