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Mercedes-Benz buys into Tesla

The plan behind the 10 percent acquisition of Tesla is for Daimler AG to ramp up its own electric car production.

The US-based Tesla, which uses lithium-ion batteries and the Lotus Elise as its donor vehicle, is the only producer of highway-capable electric cars in the North American and European markets.

Mercedes-Benz parent, Daimler AG, says it bought the stake and will form a co-operative to make and develop battery systems, electric drivetrains and vehicles.

Tesla provided technology to create the Daimler-owned electric Smart car.

Daimler has 100 Smart electric cars on trial in London and later this year will start production of 1000 versions.

This year Daimler is also starting small-series production of the Mercedes-Benz B-Class with a fuel-cell drive system.

In 2010 it will introduce its first battery-powered Mercedes-Benz and from 2012, Daimler plans to equip all Smart and Mercedes-Benz electric vehicles with its inhouse-produced lithium-ion batteries.

In 2004, Tesla began development of its first electric vehicle, the Roadster, which remains the only highway-capable EV for sale in North America or Europe.

The Tesla Roadster is the first production battery electric vehicle to travel more than 320km per charge. It accelerates from zero to 100km/h in about in 4 seconds.

Tesla will start making its four-door Model S in California in late 2011.

Neil Dowling
Contributing Journalist
GoAutoMedia Cars have been the corner stone to Neil’s passion, beginning at pre-school age, through school but then pushed sideways while he studied accounting. It was rekindled when he started contributing to magazines including Bushdriver and then when he started a motoring section in Perth’s The Western Mail. He was then appointed as a finance writer for the evening Daily News, supplemented by writing its motoring column. He moved to The Sunday Times as finance editor and after a nine-year term, finally drove back into motoring when in 1998 he was asked to rebrand and restyle the newspaper’s motoring section, expanding it over 12 years from a two-page section to a 36-page lift-out. In 2010 he was selected to join News Ltd’s national motoring group Carsguide and covered national and international events, launches, news conferences and Car of the Year awards until November 2014 when he moved into freelancing, working for GoAuto, The West Australian, Western 4WDriver magazine, Bauer Media and as an online content writer for one of Australia’s biggest car groups. He has involved himself in all aspects including motorsport where he has competed in everything from motocross to motorkhanas and rallies including Targa West and the ARC Forest Rally. He loves all facets of the car industry, from design, manufacture, testing, marketing and even business structures and believes cars are one of the few high-volume consumables to combine a very high degree of engineering enlivened with an even higher degree of emotion from its consumers.
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