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Old 22nd May 2018, 15:23   #1
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Mercedes to invest 500 million Euros in French electric car plant

Mercedes-Benz has announced that it will invest Euro 500 million in the Smart plant in Hambach, France for capacity expansion. The German company also plans to manufacture future electric cars at this facility.

Moving towards electric cars, Mercedes-Benz plans to introduce 10 different electric cars by 2022. These electric cars are expected to contribute about 15-25% of the total cars made by Mercedes-Benz by 2025. Further, the Smart brand is expected to produce only electric cars from 2020.

Mercedes also plans to invest Euro 10 billion for the expansion of its electric car fleet and an electric battery production network across 6 plants including the Smart plant in Hambach and the lead plant in Rastatt, Germany along with plants in Kecskemet, Hungary, the BBAC production site in Beijing, the COMPAS plant in Mexico and Finland's Valmet Automotive.

The Hambach plant is operational since 1997 and makes the Smart brand of cars. Since 2012, the Smart EQ fortwo coupe and the Smart EQ fortwo cabrio are being made here. The investment will include a new body shop and surface treatment plant along with the expansion of assembly facilities and additional infrastructure. At present, the plant claims to being CO2-neutral as it procures all its electricity from renewable sources.

Mercedes to invest 500 million Euros in French electric car plant-32.jpg

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Last edited by blackwasp : 22nd May 2018 at 15:26.
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Old 22nd May 2018, 15:34   #2
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re: Mercedes to invest 500 million Euros in French electric car plant

Excellent. I am sure that Merc will deliver.

I only wish we learn from experience and come up with a rational policy for Hybrid and Electric Vehicles. At the moment we are making in nearly impossible for anyone to bring in either.
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Old 22nd May 2018, 16:48   #3
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re: Mercedes to invest 500 million Euros in French electric car plant

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Originally Posted by sgiitk View Post
I only wish we learn from experience and come up with a rational policy for Hybrid and Electric Vehicles. At the moment we are making in nearly impossible for anyone to bring in either.
Hybrids will most likely die slow death if the recent trend continues. It will be only fully-electrics in the future (see below image for sales trend). Also, almost all the car makers road maps include mostly full-electric vehicles. GM even stopping the development of most popular plug-in hybrid Volt, as its sales declining after introduction of full-electric bolt. Prius sales also declining rapidly over the last few years.
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Mercedes to invest 500 million Euros in French electric car plant-ev_types.png  

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Old 22nd May 2018, 22:14   #4
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re: Mercedes to invest 500 million Euros in French electric car plant

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Originally Posted by sri_tesla View Post
Hybrids will most likely die slow death if the recent trend continues. It will be only fully-electrics in the future (see below image for sales trend). Also, almost all the car makers road maps include mostly full-electric vehicles. GM even stopping the development of most popular plug-in hybrid Volt, as its sales declining after introduction of full-electric bolt. Prius sales also declining rapidly over the last few years.
I kind of agree with you on the trend with Prius but IMO that cannot be generalized to all hybrids. Prius, even though a great product in terms of technology, they move like turtles. That is probably one of the reasons for declining sales.

Plug-in hybrids in general are growing. As per this Reference Plug-in hybrids (+69 %) increased faster than pure EVs (+52 %)
Mercedes to invest 500 million Euros in French electric car plant-wwa32018.png

The above reference is opposite to the trend you have shown. Would appreciate if you can share the source.

Last edited by Thermodynamics : 22nd May 2018 at 22:31. Reason: Grammar
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Old 23rd May 2018, 10:34   #5
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re: Mercedes to invest 500 million Euros in French electric car plant

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Originally Posted by Thermodynamics View Post
The above reference is opposite to the trend you have shown. Would appreciate if you can share the source.
The image i shared is from Bloomberg (BNEF - Bloomberg New Energy Finance).
https://about.bnef.com/electric-vehi.../#toc-download
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Old 23rd May 2018, 11:01   #6
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Re: Mercedes to invest 500 million Euros in French electric car plant

Whoa! I expect a full onslaught of EVs from Mercedes. They are going to shake the premium EVs market; saying this based on the sheer strength of Mercedes' R&D (if I was Tesla, I'd be worried).

What's most important is that Mercedes is making these investments toward 'small' EVs. Airbags & ABS didn't really make a difference to the world until they arrived in hatchbacks & small / cheap cars. Similarly, EVs will only make a difference to the planet when they come to the mass market cars.
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Old 23rd May 2018, 11:26   #7
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Re: Mercedes to invest 500 million Euros in French electric car plant

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Originally Posted by GTO View Post
Whoa! I expect a full onslaught of EVs from Mercedes. They are going to shake the premium EVs market; saying this based on the sheer strength of Mercedes' R&D (if I was Tesla, I'd be worried).
I am not sure if Mercedes has the R&D at this point of time to dethrone Tesla from EV dealership. They certainly have deep pockets though. Daimler AG trucks head has this to say about Tesla Semi trucks recently:

“If Tesla really delivers on this promise, we’ll obviously buy two trucks -- one to take apart and one to test because if that happens, something has passed us by,” Daum said. “But for now, the same laws of physics apply” in Germany and in California, where Tesla is based, he added.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...ine&yptr=yahoo

Mercedes and others certainly have the technology for passenger cars as shown by Jaguar I-PACE and upcoming Audi e-tron. But Mercedes need to invest more money in sourcing battery packs in large numbers. There will certainly be huge demand for the EVs from the likes of Mercedes, Audi, but these companies roadmaps still indicate the mass market EVs in 2020-22.

On the other hand, Tesla Model 3 is on track to beat the Mercedes C class, BMW 3 series in Q3 or Q4, 2018 itself in US. In 2019, there is a good chance that Tesla will beat all the luxury car makers in US sales.

Last edited by sri_tesla : 23rd May 2018 at 11:29.
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