With all the news yesterday around Tesla Motors signing a deal with Governor Schwarzenegger to manufacture its next electric sedan in California instead of New Mexico (see video), a potentially much bigger deal slipped by almost unnoticed. German magazine AutomobilWoche is reporting that Tesla will be supplying lithium ion batteries to Mercedes. The German car maker plans to make electric versions of its A- and B-class vehicles, as well as its Smart cars as soon as 2010. When I called Tesla for confirmation, the spokesperson there had “no comment,” but did not deny the report either.
I guess that extra $40 million infusion that founder Elon Musk poured into the company last December is paying off.
If Tesla can supply the drive trains for electric cars made by major auto manufacturers like Mercedes that not only would be a huge vote of confidence in its technology, it could also lead to a bigger business than selling its own cars. Are the Tesla Roadster and its upcoming sedan merely demo products for Tesla’s real business—supplying the electric “engines” for the world’s future gas-free vehicles?
Its smart business no doubt. Building volume for their main component will drive down costs. Which will make the 60k and 30K cars possible.
Its smart business no doubt. Building volume for their main component will drive down costs. Which will make the 60k and 30K cars possible.
Where do you get the electricity to charge the batteries from?
AND what does this have to do with the web ????????
This is a great step towards getting electric vehicles into the mainstream. Who wouldn’t jump at the chance to buy an long range electric car, and never have to buy gas again. The first company to make an affordable viable plug in electric car will make a killing. The answer to the gas crisis is already here.
seems like a good solution for rich people(liberals particularly) to drive expensive cars while avoiding social stigma of driving gas guzzlers.
The answer to the oil crisis is to dig more here to compete with OPEC. http://www.americansolutions.com/
It isn’t going to be batteries it is going to be the electric control systems that will make more money. The power system and battery management is the difficult part. The batteries will be great for a while and then some company like Samsung will come along and lower the price because of increased volume.
A war is just beginning between bigPower and bigOil.
Moving all the auto industry to electricity will be a major blow for oil companies.
Time to sell Exxon and buy Enron again.
@3
Elon Musk also started a Solar Company… you can setup a solar panel on your roof that directly charges your roadster. But you are definitely right it has to come from some other source, but the point is it is way more efficient than our current vehicles… so that point is moot.
Jesse: Your just parroting republican dogma. Whether it’s now or in 50 years, we’ve got to shift off of oil. Sooner or later it’s going to run out, and a lot of experts already think we’ve hit peak production. Secondly, america is still one of the top oil producers in the world, and we’re still having supply problems. What’s to stop increased supply from just being used up by china and india? You want to keep oil prices low? Stop the fed from drowning the market with cheap dollars to keep the american dollar strong. Most of the price increase is due to the sinking dollar! BTW (this will really piss of the conservatives out there), meanwhile, venezuela with its nationalized oil has the cheapest oil in the world, somewhere less than 50 cents per gallon. The free market competition doesn’t always drive down prices, especially in a corporate hegemony like big oil.
In regards to the climate crisis (and yes, it the permafrost melts it will be a crisis), high oil prices are a bit of a blessing. The high costs of fossil fuels are finally causing a shift over to renewables.
Best of luck Tesla.
P.S. I just heard nissan was doing a major push into 100% electric vehicles to hit the lower end of this market.
Congrats to Elon and the Tesla Motor team! Hopefully their battery patents are broad enough to protect them from competition. With any luck we’ll see quality cars getting 200+ miles per charge. Of course, this also means we’ll need to build more power plants, with nuclear being the environmental best solution. Are we ready for that?
oops, in too much of a hurry
You’re* just parroting…
if* the permafrost melts it will be a crisis
They are just supplying batteries. If Tesla’s cars actually work, i can see it being swallowed by a single car maker. Drive train technology is nothing something auto makers would like to share.
For a minute there I thought I was on Wired’s Cars 2.0! Weird.
Tony, you are right that the weak dollar is largely to blame for high oil prices, but so is speculation about the future supply.
(http://gcaptain.com/maritime/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/09/who-has-the-oil.jpg) This is from 2004. Now Russia would be the size of Saudi Arabia as they are very aggressive when it comes to exploration. The USA could be the size of Saudi Arabia as well, but we aren’t. Even after discovering tons of oil offshore, in the Dakotas, and in the Rockies, we aren’t allowed to drill in many places. If Congress were to lift bans on drilling domestically, the speculators would have prices drop $.50 overnight.
Sooner or later it will run out, I agree, but it’s not going to happen anytime soon. Let’s lower prices now, and continue using technology to develop more efficient and environmentally friendly products. What Tesla is doing is great, but it is not going to solve our energy problems.
Their business model is not selling cars. It’s part of it, but the reality is that licensing out all the technology that went into the car is where they see the money at. They don’t actually want to do any dirty work if they don’t have to.
While their business is cars, if you look back at their history (I have been researching Mercedes for the last month on http://www.emercedesbenz.com since I am about to make a car purchase) you will find that Mercedes is often at the front when it comes to new technology.
Take for instance the huge amount of research cars they have designed, most of which have technology which is used in our vehicles today. Check the link below and read about some of the cars they have built, and I think you will have a new appreciation for Mercedes-Benz
http://www.emercedesbenz.com/N.....enz_1.html
The answer is NO. Mercedes saw the media hype of Telsa Motors and success of the lithium ion batteries in its products. They saw a opportunity to possibly inc an exclusive deal. Do we know if it is exclusive with Mercedes? Tesla Motors reminds me of a scion type of company in that it will release, in the foreseeable future, a small variety of cars that are targeted towards very specific demographics (people who want to trick out their cars and listen to techno music vs. wealthy professionals who want to, at least, appear to live a “green” lifestyle while driving in style). Check this for some cool ideas on how to innovate kind of like Tesla and Mercedes… http://www.readtheanswer.com/index.php?RTA=web2
jesse: Thanks for the graphic. That was helpful.
I agree that increase drilling would stop the speculators temporally, but it would be short lived. In terms of return on investment, I can’t think of any asset class that has appreciated as much in value in the past few years as oil. And it makes sense. Anytime you have a decreasing supply of something with increasing demand it’s a good investment.
According to your graphic, even if the U.S. said f’ any environmental consequences and drilled all of it’s oil, it probably wouldn’t manage to boost global supply more than a few percent. (I realize I’m mixing the supply of oil under ground vs. the supply in the market, but you get my point). If we don’t shift off of oil soon, all those other countries are going to become the new superpowers while our economy shrivels. This is what the republicans don’t acknowledge. They’re willing to sacrifice long-term economic and national stability for short term relief (though I think their primary motivation is in lining the pockets of big oil).
Tesla, what a balling company!
I’ve worked as a software developer at an assambly fabric of Audi. 50.000 people are working there, allthough almost everthing is automated. I’ve never seen something that massive. If Tesla wants into mass car production there’s really no other way than through the existing manufacturers. Building your own mass automobile production from scratch would be like building 2 Google’s. That’s totally insane.
Wow, if electric car is out on the market, then cars that run on fuel will be price-less.
I don’t think anyone would want to use fuel car in the future anymore.
Combustion Cars will be dead in 20 years
It looks like Tesla Motors really has a bright future, especially with the insane petrol prices around today. Electric cars will obviously be the way of the future and it seems car manufacturers are finally recognizing this.