A German official is pushing Tesla (TSLA) to buy commercial electric vehicle maker Streetscooter.
He even personally reached out to Elon Musk about it.
At a time when electric delivery vehicles weren’t as popular, DHL, one of the largest logistics companies in the world, took over StreetScooter to build electric vehicles for its own fleet and others.
StreetScooter quickly emerged as an important electric vehicle manufacturer in the commercial space.
The company now has two factories to double its production capacity to “up to 20,000 electric vans per year,” and it partnered with Ford last year to build a bigger version of its electric delivery vehicle.
However, DHL has grown disinterested in the company and announced that it will stop production.
The company has been looking for a buyer, and there was interest from China, but now, Oliver Krische, a member of the German federal parliament, has been pushing a different idea: for Tesla to take over and resume production.
Germany’s Spiegel reported:
“Oliver Krischer tries to secure the survival of Streetscooter with unconventional means. The member of the Bundestag for the Greens wrote personally to Tesla founder Elon Musk and asked him to buy the Aachen-based manufacturer of electric vans and to continue production under the leadership of Tesla.”
Before shutting down production, Streetscooter had produced over 15,000 electric delivery vehicles.
The Streetscooter’s electric van is built to fit a modular battery system that can hold modules between 30 and 90 kWh of energy, which it claims can enable a range of between 80 km (50 miles) and 200 km (124 miles) — enough for most delivery vehicles.
Tesla doesn’t have any commercial electric vehicle production, but it is about to start building its electric Semi truck, and it has previously talked about building an electric van.
There’s no word on if Krischer has received a response from Musk or Tesla.
Electrek’s Take
I put the chances of this happening as very low, but I like the idea.
Tesla is currently investing heavily in Germany, and if it could get a good deal on the organization, it could give them direct workforce with some production capacity on top of it.
Commercial vehicles in those Streetscooter segments could be an interesting new market for Tesla.
What do you think? Let us know in the comment section below.
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Author: Fred Lambert
Source: Electrek
