Although the U.S. is still being promised a delayed BYD electric car, Daimler and BYD have announced plans to produce one next year in China.
According to Daimler chief Dieter Zetsche, the EV that will be built as a joint venture "is frozen, and the first prototype will appear next April."
Zetsche was reported by Inside Line as saying earlier intentions to build an EV with another JV partner, BAIC, were scrapped because "they have no battery technology, so it was better to do this with BYD."
This said, the German company that engineers Mercedes and Maybach will also do the lion’s share of development on the BYD car, lending its know how to the ambitious automaker that’s been plagued with issues including allegations of patent violations.
Mercedes-Benz has announced that it will push the release of its first mass-market fuel cell vehicle up by one year, to 2014.
Based strictly on past U.S. sales numbers, Mercedes-Benz has not been serious about hybrid cars. Between its Mercedes S400 Hybrid sedan and ML450 Hybrid SUV, the company sold 1,21 hybrid units in 2010—representing 0.6% of the overall hybrid market. Yet, Dr. Christian Mohrdieck, Daimler’s director of fuel cell and battery-drive development, last week told HybridCars.com that Daimler, the maker of Mercedes-Benz vehicles, is making a big investment in hybrids. “In the future, we will have hybrid models in all our car lines,” Mohrdieck said. “This is one step to reduce emissions and increase fuel economy.”
The blogosphere will a hundred times echo today's announcement that Mercedes-Benz will offer hybrid versions of its C-, E- and S-class vehicles in the United States and Europe in about three years. Automotive News quoted Herbert Kohler, head of Daimler's E-Drive and Future Mobility unit, who said, “We have a leading position in the premium segment concerning alternative propulsion systems, and we will defend it." Sound familiar? That’s because Daimler comments about future hybrids date back at least seven years.
After a few years of subdued displays, this year’s Detroit auto show is an opportunity to demonstrate that the auto industry is fully back on its feet. What green cars should we expect to see in Detroit? The reveal of a family of Priuses, exotic electric supercars, cheap fuel-efficient subcompacts, and Chinese electric-drive models.
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[HCDATE] Hollywood has developed a reputation for being home to a swarm of high-profile, EV-driving enviro-celebs, including Leo DiCaprio, Larry David, Ed Begley Jr, and countless others. But that doesn't mean everyone in the entertainment industry is a hybrid-lover. Meanwhile, Neil Young's one-of-a-kind classic plug-in hybrid conversion, the LincVolt, appears to be the culprit in a fire that caused more than $1 million in damage to the singer's San Francisco warehouse.
Daimler is now taking orders for the Mercedes-Benz B-Class F-Cell hydrogen fuel-cell car that will be leased to customers in California. The monthly lease price will be $600 to $800 including fuel. The leases are being limited to drivers in Los Angeles and the San Francisco area, due to limited availability of hydrogen fuel. It’s not a coincidence that Mercedes is introducing a marketing campaign about alternative vehicles, at the same time that it introduces the F-Cell car.
The new federal fuel efficiency rules announced last week by the Environmental Protection Agency were hailed as a major success by the Obama administration and embraced by carmakers. But many car dealers—the folks closest to the consumer, and the point of sale—are still dragging their feet on hybrids and other fuel-efficient options. In fact, Mercedes dealers are up in arms about Daimler's potential move to make its S-class vehicles exclusively hybrid.
European carmakers are preparing their latest cool hybrid concepts for the 2010 Geneva Motor Show, which runs March 4 to 14. The dominant theme is green speed. Here’s a sneak peak at a few vehicle unveilings, which show some restraint on fuel economy, but hold nothing back on horsepower. For example, the Mercedes F800 Style plug-in hybrid concept can travel up to 18 miles solely on electricity—although perhaps not when pushed to the limits of its 4.7-second 0-60 mph acceleration and top speed of 155 mph.
It’s commonly reported that lithium ion batteries will usher in a new era of electric cars and plug-in hybrids. Not exactly, says John German, the engineer who literally wrote the book about hybrid cars for the Society of Automotive Engineers. In an interview with HybridCars.com, German said the next wave of lithium ion batteries will not significantly reduce the cost of electric cars, but they could make conventional hybrids ubiquitous.
