{"id":1529,"date":"2009-06-30T20:09:55","date_gmt":"2009-06-30T20:09:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ietransfer.wpengine.com\/?p=1529"},"modified":"2009-06-30T20:09:55","modified_gmt":"2009-06-30T20:09:55","slug":"daimlers-first-electric-car","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inspiredeconomist.com\/articles\/daimlers-first-electric-car\/","title":{"rendered":"Daimler\u2019s First Electric Car"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-1533\" src=\"http:\/\/inspiredeconom.wpengine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/06\/mercedes-benz-s-class-small.jpg\" alt=\"The New Mercedes Benz S Class\" width=\"288\" height=\"192\" \/>Most odd stories relating to the environment tend to revolve around researchers and scientists and their slightly off the wall discoveries. But not so today. Today, in news of the weird \u2014 or at least slightly surreal \u2014 I bring you Daimler, the German automaker, who announced last week their very first hybrid car, the Mercedes Benz S Class. It\u2019s a limousine.<\/p>\n<p>No, they aren\u2019t joking. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.physorg.com\/news165387006.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Daimler\u2019s new hybrid limo<\/a> has two motors, one electric and one gasoline, and it puts out 186 \u2013 189 grams of <a href=\"http:\/\/inspiredeconomist.com\/2008\/12\/23\/co2-vs-fluorocarbons-the-battle-for-the-automotive-air-conditioning-market-rages-on\/\" target=\"_self\">CO<sub>2<\/sub><\/a> per kilometer compared to the 234 grams from a comparable model with a normal engine. Of course, the average car on the European street only emits 160 grams per kilometer. Daimler\u2019s reasoning appears to be that some people will always want limos, and as such something is better than nothing.<\/p>\n<p>German automobile manufacturers have been significantly behind burgeoning environmental trends within the industry. While Toyota released the <a href=\"http:\/\/gas2.org\/2009\/02\/20\/trading-limos-for-hybrids-at-the-oscars\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"noopener\">Prius<\/a> 9 years ago in Europe and Lexus, Toyota\u2019s luxury line, released its first hybrid 5 years later, German companies preferred to focus on diesel engines, dismissing hybrids and electrics as blips on the radar.<\/p>\n<p>But increasingly tougher <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/European_emission_standards\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">emissions standards<\/a> in Europe and market trends worldwide appear to be forcing German companies to rethink. BMW plans to launch a hybrid sedan this year, and Porsche is set to come out with a hybrid SUV in 2010. In recent months, Daimler purchased a 10% stake in <a href=\"http:\/\/inspiredeconomist.com\/2009\/06\/24\/more-money-for-the-auto-industry\/\" target=\"_self\">Tesla Motors<\/a> as well as an another battery company.<\/p>\n<p>Still, in the grand scheme of hybrids, a semi-electric <a href=\"http:\/\/sustainablog.org\/2006\/02\/25\/gb-22-solar-charged-cell-phones-and-flex-fuel-limos-at-the-oscars\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"noopener\">limousine<\/a> is not going to impact the environment that much one way or the other. Hopefully, Daimler\u2019s next offering will be a little more practical.<\/p>\n<p><em>Photo Credit: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.daimler.com\/dccom\/0-5-7163-1-1206444-1-0-0-0-0-0-12071-7163-0-0-0-0-0-0-0.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Mercedes Benz<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Most odd stories relating to the environment tend to revolve around researchers and scientists and their slightly off the wall discoveries. But not so today. Today, in news of the weird \u2014 or at least slightly surreal \u2014 I bring you Daimler, the German automaker, who announced last week their very first hybrid car, the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":74,"featured_media":1533,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center 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But not so today. Today, in news of the weird \u2014 or at least slightly surreal \u2014 I bring you Daimler, the German automaker, who announced last week their very first hybrid car, the&hellip;","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inspiredeconomist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1529"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inspiredeconomist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inspiredeconomist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inspiredeconomist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/74"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inspiredeconomist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1529"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inspiredeconomist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1529\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inspiredeconomist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1533"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inspiredeconomist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inspiredeconomist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1529"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inspiredeconomist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1529"},{"taxonomy":"adace-sponsor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inspiredeconomist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/adace-sponsor?post=1529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}