Mercedes-Benz’ latest EQ electric vehicles are making waves in the premium EV market, and its next generation of EVs – as shown by the ultra-efficient Mercedes-Benz VISION EQXX concept – will simply raise the competitive bar for range and performance even higher… and Mercedes thinks that the best way to achieve its goals is by going it alone.

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Daimler, Mercedes-Benz’s parent company, is already converting gas-powered car production capacity to electric car production capacity in Europe, but now it looks like they are turning their attention to the US.

The German automaker confirmed today that it plans to invest $1 billion to build Mercedes-Benz’s ‘EQ’ electric cars and its batteries in the US. expand full story

Mercedes-Benz’s company-owned retail network in the UK took to Twitter to ask its followers if they would consider buying an electric car.

The automaker, which recently discontinued its only all-electric vehicle, received an interesting reality check. expand full story

Among legacy automakers, Daimler has been one the most active in converting gas-powered car production to electric car production lately.

Earlier this year, they announced that their major Mercedes-Benz Untertürkheim plant will adapt to produce electric motors and today, they are adding battery pack production to the factory. expand full story

After unveiling Mercedes’ new all-electric ‘EQ’ sub-brand last year, Daimler showed great ambitions to become a leader in all-electric vehicles.

The first effort is expected to come to market next year in the form of a luxury SUV called ‘EQ C’ unveiled last year, but now we learn that they reportedly plan to follow the vehicle with a relatively affordable all-electric hatchback with long-range to be unveiled at the Frankfurt motor show in September. expand full story

Since Tesla started producing home battery packs and selling them through SolarCity in 2014, several other automakers, including Nissan and BMW, started also leveraging their electric vehicle battery pack technology for residential energy storage.

Now Mercedes-Benz is the latest to join the industry and it seems to be doing it in a more serious way than Nissan or BMW with a new partnership with Vivint Solar, the second biggest residential solar installer in the US after Tesla’s SolarCity. expand full story

We reported just last week that Daimler was among the most ambitious legacy automakers when it comes to the electrification of their vehicle lineup with plans for 10 new all-electric models and 15 to 25% of all their production being electric by 2025.

At Daimler’s Annual Shareholder‘s Meeting in Berlin today, the company announced an acceleration of those plans. They are now aiming to get those new electric vehicles in production by 2022 – 3 years sooner than previously announced. expand full story

Daimler has been fleshing out its electric vehicle strategy over the last year and a big part of it came to life in Paris earlier this year with the unveiling of Mercedes’s new ‘EQ’ brand and the first vehicle under that electric brand: ‘Generation EQ’.

The German automaker admitted that it fell behind in the electric vehicle segment, but it hopes to come out on top by 2025 with 25% of its production being electric. Now an executive confirmed that the company is planning a $11 billion investment for the first series of vehicles to come out. expand full story

You simply can’t manufacture electric vehicles in volume if you can’t secure a steady supply of battery cells. Some automakers are doing it by partnering with battery makers, like GM with LG, and others are directly investing in battery manufacturing capacity, like Tesla with the Gigafactory – though still in partnership with a battery maker, Panasonic.

Now Daimler plans to further its own investment in battery production by 1 billion euros ($1.1 billion USD) in order to support its electric vehicle ambitions with Mercedes’ new ‘EQ’ brand and the new Smart electric car lineup. expand full story

In advance of Formula E’s 2017-2018 season start this Sunday in Hong Kong, news came today that Mercedes has signed an “option agreement” reserving their position as one of 12 teams for the 2018-2019 season, up from 10 teams this season.

Mercedes joins a growing list of manufacturers involved in Formula E – Renault, Citroen, Mahindra and NextEV are already team title sponsors, with Jaguar, Audi, and Faraday Future all joining this year, and McLaren recently beating out Porsche and current supplier Williams to supply batteries for the series in the future.

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You can’t blame to Germans for not having a long-term vision. In interviews at the 2016 Paris Motor Show after unveiling Mercedes’ new all-electric ‘EQ’ brand, Daimler CEO Dieter Zetsche admitted that Tesla is currently the leader in electric vehicles, but he plans for his company to catch up to Tesla and become the new leader by 2025. expand full story

Porsche is leading the development of an ultra fast-charging infrastructure for Volkswagen’s next generation of electric vehicles, which includes Porsche’s own Mission E, but also Audi’s quattro e-tron and VW’s latest vehicle unveiled at the Paris Motor Show last month.

Now the German automaker confirmed working with other automakers toward the development of the technology and said that it will even work with Tesla vehicles. expand full story

As expected following months of rumours, Mercedes announced its new all-electric brand called ‘EQ’ at the 2016 Paris Motor Show today. The German automaker says that the name EQ stands for “Electric Intelligence”.

Under the new brand, Mercedes will not only sell electric vehicles, but it will also deploy charging stations, sell home chargers and even home battery packs. Does it remind you of anything? More importantly, Mercedes unveiled the first vehicle under its new brand: the ‘Generation EQ’. expand full story

Daimler is expected to announce its upcoming lineup of electric vehicles under Mercedes’ new EV brand at the Paris Motor Show in the next few days. Ahead of the event, Mercedes released a teaser of a vehicle to be unveiled at the show.

It certainly looks interesting… expand full story

Today, Daimler unveiled another piece of its electric vehicle strategy ahead of the expected introduction of its upcoming lineup of electric vehicles under Mercedes’ new EV brand. Still under the Mercedes brand, Daimler unveiled a new all-electric van concept aimed at the delivery industry with autonomous robots. expand full story

At Pebble Beach today for the Monterey Car Week and 2016 Pebble Beach Concours D’Elégance this weekend, Mercedes unveiled a new all-electric luxury-class coupé concept: the Vision Mercedes-Maybach 6.

While Mercedes is about to unveil its plans for a series of new electric vehicles potentially under a new brand, it doesn’t look like the Vision Mercedes-Maybach 6 will be in those plans, but it’s instead a concept to feature future designs and technologies that could potentially make it to Mercedes production cars in the coming years.

And it bodes well for some features important to electric vehicles… expand full story

Mercedes is about to unveil its plans for a series of new electric vehicles in the coming weeks and it is shaping up to be some interesting long-range electric additions to become available by the end of the decade in the luxury segment.

Not much is known about the vehicles at this point, but now a Daimler executive is hinting at some possible active aerodynamic features to achieve a leading drag coefficient in the segment – something Mercedes has been able to achieve in other segments. expand full story

Back in June, we shared some reports suggesting that Mercedes is going to release its upcoming series of new all-electric vehicles under a new sub-brand. Now that the company filed for the trademark ‘EQ’, it is believed that it will be the new brand that will lead Daimler’s electric vehicle effort. expand full story

When we reported on the European Public Road Authority supporting Tesla’s Autopilot system following some concerns over the use of the word ‘Autopilot’ and the program being in ‘beta’ earlier this month, we also mentioned that a bigger concern could be Mercedes calling its E-Class with ‘Drive-Pilot’ a ‘self-driving car’ in an advert, which is significantly more misleading than Tesla’s ‘Autopilot’.

Now we learn that the automaker is pulling the ad following Consumer Reports complaint to the FTC. expand full story

The timing of the release of these tests with the recent publicized fatal accident on Tesla Autopilot is only coincidental, says Motor Trend. The popular car publications released an interesting report with in-depth comparisons between driver assist and semi-autonomous systems available in vehicles from Tesla, Mercedes, Hyundai and Cadillac.

While Motor Trends doesn’t out right declare a winner, the results of the most important tests clearly points toward Tesla’s Autopilot has the most convenient system, but the publication appears to have edited the piece in reaction to the recent fatal accident in a Model S on Autopilot. expand full story

Last week, we report on Daimler’s plan to transition to greener technologies over the next few years. The bulk of the plan will be the launch the 4 new all-electric cars it greenlighted for production last year under the Mercedes-Benz brand – the first of which is expected to be unveiled at the Paris Motor Show later this year.

Now we learn that Daimler is considering introducing the upcoming EVs under a new all-electric brand. expand full story

While Mercedes has introduced several plug-in hybrid powertrains in its lineup, the German automaker has not been pushing very hard on the all-electric front. The company never built an electric car from the ground up and its only battery-powered vehicles were built on existing model platforms (A Class and B Class) with drivetrains developed in partnership with Tesla.

But earlier this year, the company announced a change in direction and greenlighted 4 new all-electric cars for production. Now we learn that the company is set to unveil the first of 4 models later this year at the Paris Motor Show. expand full story

Last year, famous Silicon Valley venture capitalist and early Tesla investor Steve Juvertson recalled a conversation he had with Uber CEO Travis Kalanick:

Travis recently told me that in 2020, if Telsas are autonomous, he’d want to buy all of them. He said all 500,000 of estimated 2020 production, I’d want them all, but he couldn’t get a return call from Elon.

Well apparently Kalanick couldn’t wait any longer and reportedly already placed an order for 100,000 autonomous Mercedes S-Class sedans, according to sources inside Daimler and Uber talking to German magazine Manager Magazin.  expand full story

SK Innovation, a battery cell maker part of the South Korea-based chemical and energy conglomerate SK, confirmed (via GreenCarCongress) that it has been selected as the supplier of battery cells for Mercedes’ upcoming line of electric vehicles.

Last month, Daimler green-lighted 4 new long-range electric vehicles, which will reportedly be two sedans and two crossover SUVs. The automaker will need an important volume of battery cells if it plans to manufacture these upcoming vehicles in significant volume. expand full story

Daimler made an interesting announcement today. The German automaker introduced a new “lead by example” policy to make electric vehicles the standard company cars for its senior management. The vehicle lineup will primarily consist of Mercedes’ plug-in hybrid vehicles, but also some all-electric vehicles will be made available.

The automaker also announced a 30 million euros investment into extending the company’s own charging infrastructure across its facilities in order to facilitate the new program. expand full story

Mercedes unveiled its new 2017 E-Class at the 2016 Detroit Auto Show this week and announced the details of its new plug-in hybrid powertrain option: 350e.  While Mercedes is working on 4 new all-electric vehicles to be released before the end of the decade, the automaker is introducing more electric hybrid powertrains in its established lineup of luxury vehicles and the 350e is the first we get to see. expand full story

Mercedes is not just watching on the sidelines while Tesla steals market shares from its segment, and while Porsche and Audi announces upcoming electric vehicles. According to a new report from Car Magazine, the legendary German automaker recently greenlighted 4 new electric cars. expand full story

NHTSA submitted a recall report earlier this week for Daimler to recall all Mercedes electric B-Class over a problem with Tesla’s drivetrain. The report, which we embed below, perfectly highlights the need for over-the-air updates across the whole automotive industry. According to the filing, the recall is due to a problem with the gateway software of the electric powertrain, which is supplied by Tesla Motors, and affects all 2,618 Mercedes electric B-Class produced between November 2013 and May 2015. expand full story

I thought that Mercedes’ recently unveiled IAA concept was weird-looking, but it has nothing on the German automaker’s new “Vision Tokyo” which it introduced today at the 2015 Tokyo Motor Show.

The concept is equipped with “fuel cell-powered electric drive system”, which consists of an electric motor powered by both a battery pack and pressure tanks of hydrogen with fuel cells. expand full story

Mercedes unveiled an interesting new concept at the Frankfurt Motor Show: a sedan which can change its features automatically from design mode to aerodynamic mode once it reaches a speed of 80 km/h (50 mph). The concept is called the IAA, which stands for Intelligent Aerodynamic Automobile, not to be confused with Internationale Automobil-Ausstellung (IAA), also known as the Frankfurt Motor Show, at which the concept is being unveiled. expand full story

In an interview with German magazine Auto Motor und Sport, Daimler’s chief of research and development Thomas Weber confirmed the company is currently working on a next generation electric vehicle with a range of “400 to 500 km” (250 to 310 miles).

Daimler already sells a few electric vehicles, like EV versions of the Smart or the Mercedes B class, but the automaker as yet to build a fully electric vehicle from the ground up. It’s not entirely clear from Weber’s comments if the concept will be a completely new electric platform, but it sounds more likely than not… expand full story

According to a new report from a German publication, Auto Motor und Sport, Mercedes will not use Tesla’s drivetrain for the next generation of electric B-Class. Mercedes will bring more development in-house to try to achieve a range of 500 km (311 miles). It’s not clear when the next generation is due.

Tesla Motors has a long-standing partnership with the German automaker. In 2009, Daimler, the company behind the Mercedes brand, acquired a ~10% stake in Tesla. Tesla started supplying electric drivetrains to Daimler for the Smart EV and then later on developed a new electric motor and battery pack for Mercedes’ B-Class which started deliveries late last year.  expand full story