With the continued strong sales of Tesla showing that luxury EVs are more than a blip in the market reserved for geeky engineers, tech moguls, and the Hollywood crowd, Mercedes-Benz is now amping up its plans to produce a long-range electric vehicle to compete with the Silicon Valley automaker. And, based on recent reports, that will be only the first of an entire sub-brand of electric cars.
Dieter Zetsche, CEO of Mercedes-Benz?s parent company, Daimler, said in June that the automaker was planning an electric car for the Paris Motor Show in October. This model is expected to be a direct rival to the Tesla Model S, with a 500-kilometer (310-mile) range to meet or exceed what that model can deliver. To built in Germany, it’s also likely to wear whichever new sub-brand moniker Mercedes-Benz has in mind to counter BMW’s i label. Timing Is Right
With battery costs falling rapidly, and continued strong interest in electric cars?just look at the reception for Tesla’s Model 3 and its 373,000 current reservations?Mercedes-Benz is now looking at EVs as a viable business within the next five to 10 years. “It is very important to get the right timing,” Zetsche said last month in an analysts? call regarding second-quarter financial results. “As a tendency, and as a trend, we have become more bullish in that regard.”
To get there, the company is investing heavily in its own research and development toward EVs; it?s part of a larger plan to push...