Daimler has been testing electric smart fortwos for a little while now, and the cars have been switched over from sodium-based batteries to newer lithium ion units in the last few months. Hopefully, at some point, all of this various testing will result in electric fortwos intended for public consumption. That day may be far off into the future. In fact, it could take a full three-years before Daimler is ready to put its electric smart into production - and at twice the price of the standard fortwo. We find that a little excessive, considering that electric vehicles are currently in production, including the recently announced MINI E. Technically, electric vehicles have been around since the early 1900s, so its definitely possible to get one into production by now. Even if Daimler isn’t able to make any money on them, it seems that it would be better to at least get the EVs into the real world at a loss. We also think it’s high time to bring the micro-hybrid system to America.

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Tesla would be supplying lithium ion battery packs to Daimler for use in the electric version of the Smart ForTwo. The German edition of the Financial Times today has a story on the expansion of Daimler’s test fleet of battery powered Smarts from London into Berlin and other cities. In the story, it reveals that Tesla will be supplying batteries for the 150 cars that will be deployed in Berlin. Daimler is also teaming up with utility RWE to install 500 charging stations around the German capital. According to a Google translation of the story, the lithium-ion Smart will have a 90-mile range in urban driving. Daimler will eventually expand the test fleet to 1,000 cars. So far Tesla has not replied to a request for comment, but we’ll provide an update as soon as we here something.

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Smart currently has an electric version of its little ForTwo runabout… um, running about in Europe known as the Smart ed. Using a a sodium-nickel-chloride (commonly called a Zebra) battery, the 41 horse electric motor has plenty of power to move the vehicle around, and urban performance is actually said to be improved over the standard model. So far, the electric smart has only been for testing, but that looks to be changing rather soon. According to Dieter Zetsche, a fully electric ForTwo will be on sale to the public beginning in 2010.

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