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In a recent interview with Auto Motor und Sport, Daimler head Dietre Zetsche said he sees a possible future collaboration with Tata Motors on its newly purchased Jaguar and Land Rover brands. Daimler own a 7 percent stake in the Indian company.
“If Ratan Tata and Daimler would address the terms of components to be delivered, we would be open to discussions,” said Zetsche.
After Daimler sold its majority control in Chrysler to Cerberus Capital Management in August 2007, it retained a 19.9 percent stake in the American automaker. However, Daimler has now reduced its stake in Chrysler by almost two-thirds after Chrysler made a 340 million euro punch to Daimler’s pretax profits in the first quarter of 2008.
According to Wall Street Journal, Daimler now values its stake at 547 million euros, down from the original 1.4 billion euros when it sold Chrysler to Cerberus.
At a meeting with analysts this month in Munich, BMW’s CEO Norbert Reithofer was outspoken about his desire to partner with rival Mercedes-Benz.
Reithofer feels that premium European automakers should team up to fight the effects of a weak dollar and since BMW and Mercedes-Benz have plants in the Southeast, he feels it would only make sense for the two to partner up and work with U.S. parts suppliers.
According to Friedrich Eichiner, a BMW’s board member for corporate and brand development, BMW will decided by the end of the year whether or not it wants to sell engines and other components to rival automakers. When asked if he meant GM, Daimler and Fiat, Eichiner said: “We are talking with those companies you mentioned.”
Selling engines and other components to other automakers is part of CEO Norbert Reithofer’s Number One strategic plan to boost profitability. Selling engines to GM and Fiat, BMW will be able to increase revenue and reduce spending by spreading out the development and production cost over its engine and transmissions.
Since Daimler started selling its cars in the U.S. this past January, Smart cars are now available in 37 countries worldwide. Daimler announced today that Smart has sold a total 100,000 units of its new ForTwo, representing a sales increase of more than 80 percent.
Ulrich Kowalewski, director of Mercedes-Benz Center Munich, handed over the 100,000 second-generation Smart ForTwo to a 36-year-old customer.
The Smart ForTwo is most popular with customers in Italy and Germany, accounting for two-thirds of all drivers of the new model. Recently reported, Smart dealers in the U.S. are now desperate for more cars after strong sales since the brand launched in January.
Click through for the press release.
Smart ForTwo is enjoying success in the North American market and is selling quite well in regions other than LA and New York. According to CEO of Penseke Automotive Group, Roger Penske, dealers in middle America are now desperate for more cars.
Penske said that the Smart ForTwo is selling heavily with more options than originally expected. The average Smart ForTwo is loaded with $1,600 in options. Fully loaded versions account for 10 percent of the cars sold.
Chrysler currently sells about 11 SUVs by nameplate. As Chrysler moves toward combined Chrysler-Dodge-Jeep dealer, Chrysler will only need half of that number of SUVs. Chrysler is making moves to cut costs, to stem losses. Chrysler presented a plan to dealers to reduce models to 19 from the current 28.
Says Jim, “We’re going to stop overlapping, we’re going to bring everything under one roof. By doing that we will have more products in the markets we are not covering.” Jim also stated that their does not need to be two minivan nameplates as well.Â
Mercedes has successfully completed winter testing for the upcoming 2010 Mercedes-Benz B-Class with fuel-cell drive in northern Sweden.
“The results of the winter tests proved that we are on the right track with this innovative drive concept and have taken another important step on the road to reaching production standard,” said Dr. Thomas Weber, Daimler AG board member with responsibility for r&d. “As with the standard test programmes for conventional vehicles, we will be subjecting the B-Class F-CELL to further rigorous testing over the next few months.”
Mercedes will launch its first series vehicle with zero-emission fuel-cell drive in the summer of 2010. Power comes from a new generation of fuel-cell drive mated to an electric motor that produces 136-hp and a maximum torque of 236 lb-ft. Along with zero-emission fuel-cell drive, the B-Class F-CELL gets an outstanding fuel-consumption of 81mpg.
Click through for more images and the press release.
2010 B-Class F-Cell Winter Testing:
 
 
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We almost forgot that Maybach still exists as an Uber-premium brand, but its future is certainly questionable. Maybach sold only 146 cars last year, or one-tenth the projected amount.Â
The company, which sells only 2 versions of the same car in XL [57] and XXL [63] sizes, is not scheduled to get any new products anytime soon. Daimler CEO Dieter Zetsche argues that the Maybach brand shows that they can compete with the most pretigious of brands, Rolls Royce. Well, his definition of ‘compete’ must be slightly different than ours though.
Daimler plans to broaden the use of its lithium-ion hybrid technology after debuting it in the Mercedes-Benz S400 BlueHYBRID next year, the first lithium-ion battery powered series production car. According to executive board member Thomas Weber, Daimler will share the lithium-ion technology with BMW.
“BMW will implement this technology shortly after us…This is part of our cooperation agreement,” Weber told reporters at the Geneva Motor Show. “We don’t want to keep this technology to ourselves…But of course we secured the related patents for our technology.”
According to the Daimler’s annual report issued today, our main German man Dieter Zetsche received the equivalent of $12.9 million in 2007 compensation. Baller German brother right here.
55 year old Zetsche, was born in Istanbul, Turkey where is father was a civil engineer on a dam construction project. The family returned to Germany in 1956 where he obtained his electrical engineering degree in 1976 at the University of Karlsruhe. Zestche joined Damiler in 1976, where later he succeeded Jurgen Schrempp as CEO of DaimlerChrysler in 2006.
Pitching the new Smart ForTwo as the ‘perfect’ car for a concerned parent’s teenager, David Schembri, president of SmartCar USA, noted that since there is no rear seat in the new compact 2-seater, there will be no hanky-panky going on in your kid’s car.
Speaking at the Automotive News World Congress, Schembri said, “After all, what better car to have for your teenager than one without a backseat.”
Smart will be entering the United States non-existent microcar segment in about 2 months with their Smart ForTwo, and already the company sees hybrid variants on our roads within the next two years.
According to David Schembri, president of Smart USA, “A micro-hybrid is a derivative that you could see here in the next two years.” He also said that a full rechargeable all-electric variant is only a few years away.
Schembri also said that Smart is looking forward to rivals for microcars in the U.S. since that would show that the segment has a large market and potential to grow.
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