Daimler

Daimler is among one of the few major automakers with aggressive all-electric vehicle plans. The German automaker recently announced acceleration of electric car plans by 3 years and that they will spend $11 billion on 10 models by 2022.

They are backing this up with a new battery factory, which they officially unveiled today.
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Mercedes’ parent company, Daimler, announced today an important partnership with German auto supplier Bosch to develop self-driving technology aimed at the taxi and ridesharing industries.

The agreement includes the goal to reach level 4 and 5 autonomous driving systems “by the start of the next decade” – 2020-2021 – which is in line with each company’s previous timelines for autonomous driving. 
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Logistic companies are increasingly finding it economical to convert their fleet to electric vehicles, especially for urban routes. Daimler is early in the segment with its Mercedes-Benz vans and it now announced an important contract that will help them kickstart the effort.

They will make 1,500 all-electric Mercedes-Benz vans for Germany’s largest independent logistic firm, Hermes.
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We reported just last week that Daimler was among the most ambitious legacy automakers when it comes to the electrification of their vehicle lineup with plans for 10 new all-electric models and 15 to 25% of all their production being electric by 2025.

At Daimler’s Annual Shareholder‘s Meeting in Berlin today, the company announced an acceleration of those plans. They are now aiming to get those new electric vehicles in production by 2022 – 3 years sooner than previously announced.
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Daimler and Tesla have an interesting relationship. New Tesla fans might not know that Daimler actually saved the electric automaker from bankruptcy, according to CEO Elon Musk, when they invested $50 million for ~9% of the company back in 2009.

What is interesting is that despite this early show of confidence in the company, it has taken years for the German automaker to launch its own serious electrification effort, but it’s now ready to do it and they thank Tesla for having paved the way.
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While Daimler has been pushing its brands Mercedes and Smart into an aggressive transition in electrification, the German automaker had so far no great involvement in EV infrastructure. That’s about to change.

The company announced today that it is leading a $82 million round of investment in the major electric vehicle charging network ChargePoint.
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Exciting news coming out of Germany today. Mercedes-Benz announced that it started small series production of its first all-electric heavy truck, the Urban eTruck, and launched trials with customers in order to test the vehicle’s capacity on urban routes.

The company has been moving quickly on this project. After unveiling the prototype in September 2016, it’s already on the roads and in the hands of customers.
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Daimler has ambitious plans for electric vehicle production. It is among the few major automakers that not only have accepted the transition to fully electric propulsion in the auto industry, but who have also committed to converting production assets currently dedicated to internal combustion engine production. That’s a difficult move for large legacy automakers.

In one of its biggest move toward that goal, the company announced today plans for its major Untertürkheim plant to produce electric motors in a deal with workers.
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In a somewhat surprising move but definitely welcomed by electric vehicle enthusiasts, Daimler told its dealerships in the US and Canada that it will soon stop selling gas-powered Smart cars in favor of the new upcoming electric versions.
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Daimler and Uber made an announcement today that explains a few rumors that were going around in the auto industry last year. The two companies announced a partnership that will result in the German automaker building and operating a fleet of self-driving cars on Uber’s ride-sharing network.
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BMW, Daimler’s Mercedes, Ford, and Volkswagen’s Audi and Porsche announced today that they are creating a joint-venture with the goal of a “quick build-up of a sizable number of stations in order to enable long-range travel for battery electric vehicle drivers.”

The new venture is similar to the Ultra E project announced earlier this year to deploy 25 new charging station for electric vehicles along the trans-European transport network (TEN-T), but it’s apparently a separate and much more ambitious project to deploy 400 stations across Europe.
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Daimler has been fleshing out its electric vehicle strategy over the last year and a big part of it came to life in Paris earlier this year with the unveiling of Mercedes’s new ‘EQ’ brand and the first vehicle under that electric brand: ‘Generation EQ’.

The German automaker admitted that it fell behind in the electric vehicle segment, but it hopes to come out on top by 2025 with 25% of its production being electric. Now an executive confirmed that the company is planning a $11 billion investment for the first series of vehicles to come out.
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You simply can’t manufacture electric vehicles in volume if you can’t secure a steady supply of battery cells. Some automakers are doing it by partnering with battery makers, like GM with LG, and others are directly investing in battery manufacturing capacity, like Tesla with the Gigafactory – though still in partnership with a battery maker, Panasonic.

Now Daimler plans to further its own investment in battery production by 1 billion euros ($1.1 billion USD) in order to support its electric vehicle ambitions with Mercedes’ new ‘EQ’ brand and the new Smart electric car lineup.
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Daimler is expected to announce its upcoming lineup of electric vehicles under Mercedes’ new EV brand at the Paris Motor Show in the next few days. Ahead of the event, Mercedes released a teaser of a vehicle to be unveiled at the show.

It certainly looks interesting…
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Today, Daimler unveiled another piece of its electric vehicle strategy ahead of the expected introduction of its upcoming lineup of electric vehicles under Mercedes’ new EV brand. Still under the Mercedes brand, Daimler unveiled a new all-electric van concept aimed at the delivery industry with autonomous robots.
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Today, Daimler introduced a new all-electric vehicle under its Denza brand in partnership with BYD in China. The vehicle, called Denza 400, is based on the Mercedes-Benz B-Class platform, which is already offered in an all-electric version in Europe, but the Denza 400 features a new 62 kWh battery pack.

The new higher energy capacity pack could hint at what Daimler plans to introduce in its upcoming lineup of electric vehicles under Mercedes’ new EV brand.
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Mercedes is about to unveil its plans for a series of new electric vehicles in the coming weeks and it is shaping up to be some interesting long-range electric additions to become available by the end of the decade in the luxury segment.

Not much is known about the vehicles at this point, but now a Daimler executive is hinting at some possible active aerodynamic features to achieve a leading drag coefficient in the segment – something Mercedes has been able to achieve in other segments.
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Back in June, we shared some reports suggesting that Mercedes is going to release its upcoming series of new all-electric vehicles under a new sub-brand. Now that the company filed for the trademark ‘EQ’, it is believed that it will be the new brand that will lead Daimler’s electric vehicle effort.
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Today, Daimler unveiled its first all-electric truck – coincidently, only a week after Tesla CEO Elon Musk confirmed that the electric automaker is currently working on its own vehicle in the space. While Musk doesn’t plan on unveiling his ‘Tesla Semi’ until next year, there’s no rush to beat Daimler to market since the German automaker doesn’t plan to bring its electric truck, called the eTruck, to production until 2020.
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Last week, we report on Daimler’s plan to transition to greener technologies over the next few years. The bulk of the plan will be the launch the 4 new all-electric cars it greenlighted for production last year under the Mercedes-Benz brand – the first of which is expected to be unveiled at the Paris Motor Show later this year.

Now we learn that Daimler is considering introducing the upcoming EVs under a new all-electric brand.
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This week, Daimler announced its plan to transition to greener technologies over the next few years. The company laid out release schedules for several new hybrids, plug-in hybrids, fuel cell vehicles, and all-electric vehicles across all its brands.

The plan is a little all over the place but we try to summarize it below and if that’s not enough for you, you can dive into the full press package further down.
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