Mercedes

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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’.

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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…

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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.

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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…

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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