Skip to main content

Daimler and Geely to develop Smart’s electric cars

Daimler, owner of Mercedes-Benz, has partnered with Chinese automotive group Zhejiang Geely Holding Group to develop Smart’s electric cars. Smart makes small vehicles designed for urban driving and the new joint venture will assemble the next generation of Smart products at a factory in China. International sales are due to begin in 2022. Dieter Zetsche, chairman of the Daimler board, says: “Separately, Mercedes-Benz will produce a compact electric vehicle [EV] at the Hambach plant, sustaining employ
April 9, 2019 Read time: 1 min

2069 Daimler, owner of 1685 Mercedes-Benz, has partnered with Chinese automotive group Zhejiang Geely Holding Group to develop Smart’s electric cars.

Smart makes small vehicles designed for urban driving and the new joint venture will assemble the next generation of Smart products at a factory in China. International sales are due to begin in 2022.  

Dieter Zetsche, chairman of the Daimler board, says: “Separately, Mercedes-Benz will produce a compact electric vehicle [EV] at the Hambach plant, sustaining employment with further investment in the facility.”

Mercedes is investing €500 million at the French location, where the compact EV will be produced under the EQ brand.

In the run-up to 2022, Daimler will continue producing vehicles such as the Smart EQ Fortwo at the Hambach plant, as well as using its Novo Metso facility in Slovenia to produce the smart EQ Forfour.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Ford, Uber and Lyft to share data through SharedStreets
    October 3, 2018
    Ford, Uber and Lyft will make data sets available on the SharedStreets platform in a bid to help cities and mobility companies manage congestion, cut greenhouse gases and reduce crashes. The commitment was announced at the second annual Bloomberg Global Business Forum in New York. SharedStreets is funded by the Bloomberg Philanthropies consortium. Its aim is to make it easier for the private sector to work with cities around the world and utilise data to improve mobility. According to Ford, the partn
  • “For a city to be loveable, the car has to be a guest”: EmpowerWISM winner Kari Anne Solfjeld Eid
    March 1, 2023
    Kari Anne Solfjeld Eid, founder of e-cargo bike subscription service Whee!, has won the Empower Women in Shared Mobility 2023 programme. She tells Adam Hill how to make cities loveable…
  • Data collection becoming a crowded market
    October 26, 2017
    New ways of gathering data can revolutionise traffic and travel management, so is the writing on the wall for the traditional methods? Jon Masters reports. There are two big industries that stand to be revolutionised by massive increases in data – healthcare and transportation, says Finlay Clarke, the UK managing director of the smartphone sat nav traffic app, Waze. “At present we’re really only at the start of how cities, in particular, will be transformed,” he says.
  • RCA designs mobility for life
    June 11, 2019
    The Royal College of Art is a design powerhouse, and researcher Artur Mausbach is turning his attention to what future mobility will look – and feel – like. Adam Hill finds out more The name Royal College of Art (RCA) does not immediately bring to mind images of industrial design. But past alumni of this prestigious London institution include vacuum cleaner king James Dyson as well as that former enfant terrible of the artistic world, Tracey Emin: the RCA has always had a foot in both camps. And now it