Daimler grabs Tesla stake in electric-car push
At a Tuesday press conference held at the Daimler museum in Stuttgart, Germany, Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Daimler management board member Thomas Weber said the contract between the two companies calls for joint collaboration on the Smart electric car and future models.
Daimler, Tesla charge ahead on electric car
"Our strategic partnership is an important step to accelerate the commercialization of electric drives globally," said Thomas Weber, member of the Board of Daimler AG, in a press release.
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Daimler Takes A 10 Percent Stake in Tesla Motors. Where’s My Electric Benz?
I'll say here what I said on the other post...
Fascinating - and a little scary as well. Anyone remember Stan Ovshinsky's deal with GM to produce NiMH batteries for electric cars? That didn't work out too well!
John H. Founder of Current Motor Company - opinions on this site belong to me; not to my employer
Remember: " 'lectric for local. diesel for distance" - JTH, Amp Bros || "No Gas.
John, yes I do remember that deal. I used to be an ECD shareholder ... But on the other hand this moment reflects the changing times or as this tweet said:
Okay, so it simply means Daimler put a stock value on Tesla of $550M. And history is full of examples of failed investments, failed mergers, etc. At Sun I witnessed a string of failed mergers (Cobalt, cough, cough) and look where that led Sun. Stock market valuation has many strange angles to it.. how can GM be worth so little when it has all those sales, the buildings, the technology, the everything there is to GM? Well, I was asking a similar question about Sun not so long ago, Sun had $10B per year of sales yet had a very low stock value. FWIW there was a day last fall where someone noticed Redhat's stock value had surpassed Sun's.
Supposedly the stock price is a predictor of the future because the market is all wise and all knowing.
Companies buy stakes in each other all the time. Maybe it means nothing, maybe not. Your allusion is apt as the oil/car duopoly investments in ECD only served to delay use of NiMH for advanced electric vehicles. Maybe it's a way for Daimler to squash Tesla but that's not how the articles read since they talk about a battery pack supply arrangement.
The strongest thought in my mind is what this means for the Tesla Model S. Tesla has had an on-again-off-again plan to produce that car. Perhaps instead of Tesla producing it themselves Daimler will do it for them? Or perhaps it's to delay certain projects such as the Model S? All speculation ...
- David Herron, The Long Tail Pipe, davidherron.com, 7gen.com, What is Reiki
I think this is a good thing (of course I could be wrong!)...VW jumped through hoops to ensure that their current-gen TDI 4-cyl turbo-diesels are 50-state compliant. The last decade their 50-MPG diesels could only be sold in 45 states (most importantly, NOT in California) Various consumers bought one and registered it in Arizona/Nevada, and put it on blocks and rolled the electronic odometer to 7,000 miles, so they could them drive it to Calif, and register it as a used diesel.
It looks like Daimler (Mercedes) and BMW are trying to partner, and Porsche is partnering with VW. I'll bet some of this will give Daimler some instant E-cred and access to any Tesla patents. Both are marketed as upscale so IMHO its not too crazy an idea. There's a lot of interest in diesel-hybrids in Europe. Most American don't realize 1/3rd of the cars sold in Europe are diesel. "Diesel BMW" sounds odd, but they sell a lot of them.
I think the "Loremo" is a German design. I hear there is a 2-cyl and 3-cyl engine option, so making it a plug-in hybrid would be sweet (depending on price...)
Unlike Chevron/Cobasys, I think Daimler will actually do something with this.
I turned from pondering John's reply, and in my mail found another conspiracy theory filled email from Doug Korthof about GM, Energy Conversion Devices, Toyota, Chevron, Texaco, the Auto Alliance, and Standard Oil. Oh my.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/electric_vehicles_for_sale/message/12288
Earlier today another email from him quoted an email from GM to a college professor who has one of the few EV1's still in existence. The letter reminded him of the agreement he signed to not seek spare parts, to not seek to resurrect the car, and to preserve the car in its castrated state, etc.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/electric_vehicles_for_sale/message/12281
You take those two emails together and it's a picture of the Auto Industry leaning on ECD to keep their battery technology out of cars. Back when I owned ECD stock I'd read some of their stock filings seeing that all NiMH contracts precluded use of NiMH batteries in vehicles, and I innocently thought it was that ECD wanted to handle sale of vehicle NiMH themselves.
But, wait, wasn't this thread about Tesla Motors?
- David Herron, The Long Tail Pipe, davidherron.com, 7gen.com, What is Reiki
David - I agree times are changing and there is a chance that the Daimler / Tesla collaboration will bring good things. After all Daimler invested heavily in the Smart Car and bought it to the states. So, not all car firms are created equal.
I don't think the ECD / Cobasys control of patents is a "conspiracy theory". I think it's aggressive business practice - I often wonder if there's an anti-trust angle to it? IMO the ECD / Ovonics / Cobasys / Chevron lawsuit against Toyota / Panasonic is the thing that really killed the RAV4-EV and one could make the argument that it was that lawsuit (with a $30M settlement) that really "killed the electric car". Interestingly (and here I do veer a little into "conspiracy land") that lawsuit and aspect of anti-competitive behavior was never explored in the film "Who Killed the Electric Car?".
I do think that this history (and thus this thread) is germane to Tesla. I still maintain that the traditional car companies are heavily vested in ICE and the related servicing revenue. This leads to the fact that pure electric vehicles would constitute a threat to their overall profitability. Even if the manufacturer can make the switch and forgo profit on service items the dealers likely cannot - and the manufacturers have to keep dealers happy (to a certain extent). Not so with Tesla who doesn't have that baggage. I doubt Daimler is that different from the others - i.e. they still make a TON of money from servicing and that revenue stream is threatened by an all-electric vehicle.
But, Elon Musk is a far smarter cookie than me! So, I certainly hope it's good news for Tesla and it means the Model-S will be a great success and that we'll see electric SmartCar as well. Unfortunately for Daimler I don't think that the current Tesla battery pack is the best on the market - but perhaps Tesla (who has a LOT of smart engineers) has a better pack in R&D.
Times are changing and I think the next five years really will be an exciting time for EV's. To me the most interesting company is Detroit Electric - I hope they manage to break away from "ZAP syndrome" and actually deliver. A four-seater 100 mph / 100 mile range sedan for $25K would be a real game changer...
BTW - I have one very important question to ask. Now that I seem to have points - when can I trade them in for a VifV coffee mug? That's the really important issue here! ;-)
John H. Founder of Current Motor Company - opinions on this site belong to me; not to my employer
Remember: " 'lectric for local. diesel for distance" - JTH, Amp Bros || "No Gas.