Daimler recently made the commitment to update and expand its Rastatt factory by 2011. The company will invest over 600 million euros to retool the facility in time for the release of its next generation, sub-compact and compact A and B Class vehicles. This decision has been in the works for several years now with the company finally committing to the project.
More intriguing to us, Daimler CEO Dieter Zetsche has confirmed that the A Class will spawn a BEV version beginning in late 2010. The vehicle will initially be a low volume offering and is tentatively called the A-Class E-Cell. No additional details about the EV are available at this time.
AutoblogGreen contacted Tesla to ask if they would supply batteries for this upcoming vehicle, but they declined to comment. Daimler's investment in Tesla leads us to believe they may indeed provide batteries as they have agreed to for the Smart EV, but the word is not out yet.
For now, add yet another EV to the long, growing list of electrics coming by 2012.
Source: Daimler
