Tesla to supply Mercedes-Benz with lithium-ion batteries?

Man, Tesla's been busy today -- in addition to the announcement of the Model S and Elon Musk's promise of a sub-$30K electric car in four years, word on the street is that the company's inked a deal with Daimler AG to supply it with lithium-ion batteries for upcoming electric cars. Daimler's CEO has said the company was open to leasing battery tech to get out an electric Smart by 2010 and it's rumored that the German marque is looking to ditch gas entirely by 2015, so going to Tesla, which has been working on battery tech for some time, isn't a totally out there proposition. Just a rumor for now -- given Tesla's generally-prickly relationships with others, we'd wait for an official announcement before getting too excited about a Roadster-powered SLR, but it's certainly intriguing.

[LuvMuffin @ Jun 30th 2008 11:46PM]

i say hydrogen fuel cells will be better than electric

[Sean @ Jun 30th 2008 11:52PM]

Probably, but while practical electric cars can cost $50k-300k, practical hydrogen cars are more like $1million.
So until we can get a hydrogen infrastructure set up, electric is the way to go.

[LuvMuffin @ Jul 1st 2008 12:00AM]

true true

[SITEiNK @ Jul 1st 2008 1:06AM]

i hope they are not over doing it.
it seems they are doing a lot lately.
of course i want to see them succeed.

[Reader @ Jul 1st 2008 2:09AM]

Hydrogen never was a good idea, it's a step backward. All hydrogen is a form of battery. There's no infrastructure for it and why should there be? Converting electricity to hydrogen then back to electricity is inefficient and unnecessary. Advances in battery/supercapacitor technology is the future.

[John @ Jul 1st 2008 11:05AM]

What burns hotter after a car accident, lithium polymer batteries or a tank of hydrogen?

[deenko @ Jul 1st 2008 12:22PM]

A tank of Gas burns the hottest.

[John @ Jun 30th 2008 11:55PM]

Hydrogen is years off. And still makes us "Dependent on fuel". Yes we will be using electricity but all electric is the future. Lets just hope the government or "Big Oil" doesn't mess this up.


Hey Tesla,

I wish you didn't have a marketing strategy of introducing high end electric vehicles before producing beneficial economy cars.

But progress is progress !

[dagamer34 @ Jul 1st 2008 12:02AM]

Electric is fine around town but until we develop a better long-range mass transit system than the airplanes we have now, we're gonna need some better "portable" fuel for extended range driving.

And no, sticking solar panels on top of a car won't work.

[Ken @ Jul 1st 2008 1:22AM]

In this case, the progress is partly *because* of that marketing strategy.

Tesla is introducing high-end electric cars because this market hasn't been served by electric cars. Electric cars have been seen as inferior alternatives to internal combustion vehicles. Image is vitally important to furthering the cause of non-petroleum vehicles, and they are able to show that something that looks good, has good performance, and has a good range will sell, regardless of the price. This will prompt many other manufacturers into entering this field. I'd say that it already has done so.

[Macro @ Jul 7th 2008 4:55AM]

Hydrogen can be made with solar cells.... No need to recharge a battery... Batteries pollute and hydrogen just doesn't....

[Frankie @ Jun 30th 2008 11:56PM]

I iz sooo krunk on junk.

[Fernando @ Jul 1st 2008 12:00AM]

go yuo!

[Rafer @ Jun 30th 2008 11:57PM]

Baby steps to commercializing the electric car.

[Timothy Sottek @ Jul 1st 2008 12:07AM]

It'll be a good tribute to the man if this company can actually pull off large-scale production of cheap (and well-made) electronic vehicles.

I don't know much about Tesla Motors yet, but heres to hoping.

[brandon H @ Jul 1st 2008 12:12AM]

Electric is the only way to fly. It gets the consumer out of the business of having to purchase, and be locked into, fuel. Rather, they merely buy energy, and that energy can be made any number of ways (wind, coal, solar, nuclear, hamster wheel, dolphin sex). Electricity demands may rise, but there are many different ways to make electricity and a company can switch to a different energy production method a lot easier than 100 million consumers can switch.

Not to mention the whole infrastructure thing.

[Thi mam(kris120890) @ Jul 1st 2008 8:35AM]

Dolphin sex ?????

I'm strangely intrigued.

[Macro @ Jul 7th 2008 4:58AM]

I like the idea of hydrogen because you can fill it at home or on the road and it doesn't take 4 hours to do so.... Unless they make a breakthrough any car that can go a real distance is going to have to be hydrogen. *I love the Tesla btw and defend it everyday but I would rather have the electric motor and a hydrogen fuel cell... not to mention it would be a lot lighter.

[darkstar @ Jul 1st 2008 12:19AM]

if Tesla was a public company...i would definitely put some money in it! man, i gambled some on Ambac. that was fun but painful...

[SimbaDogg @ Jul 1st 2008 1:30AM]

i would too...but lately i haven't been willing to put my money in stocks lately. the market STINKS (jay sherman)

[leonard @ Jul 1st 2008 12:12PM]

hello

[lens42 @ Jul 1st 2008 1:45AM]

I don't see what value Tesla gives MB. Tesla does not *make* Lithium batteries. They buy them. Why wouldn't MB buy batteries from a battery manufacturer rather than a middleman? This doesn't make sense.

[Danakin @ Jul 1st 2008 8:37AM]

True, Tesla doesn't make the individual batteries themselves, but they do make the battery packs, which is what MB wants...Tesla has spent years developing this Energy Storage System (ESS) and it wouldn't make sense for MB to start developing its own right now.

The ESSs are basically boxes containing about 7,000 AA Li-Ion batteries, they weigh around 900 pounds, and and can hold approximately 53 kilowatt-hours of energy, and have numerous safety features.

You can read about it all right here

http://www.teslamotors.com/blog4/?p=59

[thedesolate1 @ Jul 1st 2008 3:58PM]

We are living in some very exciting times my friends.. lets sit back and enjoy the show. I don't think I would of wanted to be born into any other age but this one. Well except for maybe world war 3 always looming over our heads.... it's good to see this shift into sustainable development slowly unfold.

[MikeH @ Jul 2nd 2008 3:29PM]

Based on the range of the car (220 Miles), the capacity of the battery (53 Kwh), and my electricity cost ($0.09/ Kwh), I calculate it will cost $.02/mile. When you compare this to my current car that costs about $0.20/ mile, one thought goes through my mind...

Traffic is going to get real, real bad.