The partnership announced last month between Daimler and Tesla has been widely discussed. The agreement, Daimler gets about a 10% stake in Tesla and provides some funding to the company and in return gets their electric drivetrain expertise.
At this point, we know Daimler's interest. It will allow them to use proven technology to bring an EV to market sooner and will allow them to produce advanced EV products using Tesla's extensive research and development already put into the Roadster and Model S.
But what does the partnership bring to Tesla? For one, the terms of the deal include lot less money than Tesla was hoping for. The investment from Daimler is under $100 million, not enough money to really keep the company going. They will need to continue looking for additional investors.
In the short term, the Daimler partnership will likely allow Tesla to bring their Model S to market and possibly profit from it due to the underpinnings already being based on Mercedes technology, specifically the CLS Coupe. This could allow the Model S to be produced at a lower cost point for the company, be produced in larger quantities, and possibly returns high profits to Tesla.
It's really just speculation at this point, but several other sources confirm that due to the low monetary investment from Daimler, Tesla had to agree to the deal based on other benefits presented to them. The only likely benefit for Tesla would be production capacity and profit margin on the Model S.
We will have to wait and see if additional details are revealed regarding the partnership. For now all we can do is guess.
Source: Daimler
