Photo: Mercedes-Benz
If nothing spectacular happens to turn things around, the mighty internal combustion engine in cars is enjoying its last years on the planet. Governments are seriously moving against them, and as a result carmakers are announcing a complete shift to electric drivetrains in the years to come.
The latest to do so is German behemoth Mercedes-Benz. The company is at the moment holding an online conference to update us on its strategy for the future, and it is from there that this major development comes from: the brand is going all-electric.
Now, it was only a matter of time until we officially heard this, but the announcement is likely to cause quite a stir in the industry, considering the size of the company that made it, and despite the fact there is a fine print to this decision.
Mercedes said today that in 2025 it would launch “three electric-only architectures.” They will kickstart a new breed of architectures, all them all-electric from that moment onward. That, of course, doesn’t meant Mercedes will stop making ICE cars in 2025, but it does mean it will no longer research and make new platforms for them, relying instead on the existing ones.
With that in mind, the Germans say that by the end of the decade they should be ready to go all-electric. They will not do so all over, but only where “market conditions allow.” That probably means mostly Europe, where authorities are eyeing 2035 as the start year for a continent-wide ban on new ICE car sales.
In the meantime, Mercedes says that as soon as next year it will have full electric vehicles in all the segments it is present in.
From 2022 and by the end of the decade, 40 billion euros ($47 billion) will be pumped into the new technologies needed by EVs, with Mercedes hoping this major push “will bring forward the tipping point for EV adoption.”
As for the three all-electric architectures coming in 2025, they are the MB.EA, which will serve all medium to large size passenger cars, the AMG.EA dedicated to the company’s performance-oriented customers, and VAN.EA meant for the vans and Light Commercial Vehicles segments.
The flood of three-pointed star-branded EVs coming our way will require a massive amount of battery cells, and to that end Mercedes announced it is building eight Gigafactories for battery production, in addition to the nine battery plants we already knew about.
You can have a more comprehensive look at the massive Mercedes changes coming our way in the press release section below.
Now, it was only a matter of time until we officially heard this, but the announcement is likely to cause quite a stir in the industry, considering the size of the company that made it, and despite the fact there is a fine print to this decision.
Mercedes said today that in 2025 it would launch “three electric-only architectures.” They will kickstart a new breed of architectures, all them all-electric from that moment onward. That, of course, doesn’t meant Mercedes will stop making ICE cars in 2025, but it does mean it will no longer research and make new platforms for them, relying instead on the existing ones.
With that in mind, the Germans say that by the end of the decade they should be ready to go all-electric. They will not do so all over, but only where “market conditions allow.” That probably means mostly Europe, where authorities are eyeing 2035 as the start year for a continent-wide ban on new ICE car sales.
In the meantime, Mercedes says that as soon as next year it will have full electric vehicles in all the segments it is present in.
From 2022 and by the end of the decade, 40 billion euros ($47 billion) will be pumped into the new technologies needed by EVs, with Mercedes hoping this major push “will bring forward the tipping point for EV adoption.”
As for the three all-electric architectures coming in 2025, they are the MB.EA, which will serve all medium to large size passenger cars, the AMG.EA dedicated to the company’s performance-oriented customers, and VAN.EA meant for the vans and Light Commercial Vehicles segments.
The flood of three-pointed star-branded EVs coming our way will require a massive amount of battery cells, and to that end Mercedes announced it is building eight Gigafactories for battery production, in addition to the nine battery plants we already knew about.
You can have a more comprehensive look at the massive Mercedes changes coming our way in the press release section below.
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