Ouch, that does not look good. Apparantly customer #6 drove his car into the back of a Mercedes while fighting traffic in San Francisco. As expected, folks are already blaming the lack of “noise” generated by the car as being a factor. Huh? This was not a pedestrian getting hit, this was just your classic rear-end collision, almost always caused by aggressive tailgating.
While the damage does not look too bad, as most Lotus owners can tell you, this is not an inexpensive vehicle to repair. Both front and rear “clams” will need to be replaced at a cost of approximately $10,000. In addition, the suspension is very fragile, and often even low speed accidents will require replacement of some suspension pieces. Heaven-forbid if a suspension mount is damaged, because the aluminum chassis is “non-repairable”, and has to be swapped out if bent or damaged in any way.
Daimler has announced that it is jumping on the growing electric car bandwagon, with plans to roll-out a Mercedes-Benz and Smart EV in 2010.
As far as the Smart model goes, there is currently a fleet of 100 first-generation Smart electric cars running in London, and it’s a fair bet that the new cars will be at least roughly based on these.
No decision has been made regarding the price for the EV models. According to Zetsche, “That depends on whether we sell the batteries with the car or lease them. The willingness (on the part of consumers) to pay more is limited.”
read more | digg story
Filed in Electric Car, Energy-Independence, Green, Mercedes
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Also tagged batteries, Benz, daimler, Electric, Electric Car, electric cars, EV, London, mercedes benz, new cars, Smart
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Tuesday, January 29, 2008
I really like this new Mercedes E320 BlueTec. A luxury performance sedan that gets 30+ MPG is just what I am looking for. If it was 20K cheaper, and AWD, it would be perfect. Winner of the 2007 World Green Car Award.
Why don’t more car manufacturers move towards high performance diesels? A diesel hybrid could really shine…
