Mercedes

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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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. 
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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…
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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. 
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