Late last month, Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk proudly announced that his company had signed an agreement with Daimler that exceeded in value the combined sum of all of its previous contracts.
A spokesman for Daimler has
confirmed that the contract calls for the development of a brand new drivetrain that will power an upcoming electric variant the Mercedes-Benz B-Class, a tall five-door hatchback that was introduced last year at the Frankfurt Motor Show and that is not currently sold in the United States.
The Tesla-powered B-Class is scheduled to bow as a concept car in 2013. A limited amount of them will be built and put in the hands of a carefully selected group of customers as part of a pilot program. The data gathered over the course of the program will be used to finetune the mass-produced version of the car, which is due out in showrooms across Europe in 2014. At the time of writing it is not clear whether or not Mercedes-Benz will offer the electric hatchback in the United States.
It is too early to speculate about what kind of motor and battery combination will power the EV. Neither party has released official information about the car.
When it hits the market the electric B-Class will face stiff competition from the production versions of the
Audi A3 e-tron and the BMW
1-Series ActiveE.
