Zoomi Life

Tesla Motors has announced that they will be supplying the battery packs for the Daimler Smart ED.  Well, 1,000 of them anyway (all lithium-ion), with chargers. The deal was penned and announced at the Detroit Auto Show, where the Smart ED (soon to be renamed to Smart ForTwo or a derivative) was said to be coming to America soon.

The agreement is non-exclusive and supplies only 1,000 units, but has provision for possible future sales. It’s likely that Daimler is using the purchase as a cushion to build EVs with here (they’ll come to American shores without batteries and chargers installed, to lower shipping weight) while they source new supply.

This deal is an expansion of an earlier deal last year in which Daimler was to purchase 150 battery packs and chargers for their test fleet of EDs. At that time, Daimler had said they were expanding that fleet to 1,000 cars and it appears that this is what the new deal is for.

Hopefully, this is the money Tesla needs to get going on getting their cheaper sedan model into production.

Source: Green Car Advisor