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Mercedes to Introduce Its First Dedicated EV at This Year's Paris Motor Show

If BMW has announced it will be laying off the EV market for a while and concentrate on delivering an autonomous vehicle, Mercedes-Benz seems to believe it's capable of fighting at both ends.
Mercedes-Benz GLC Coupe Concept 1 photo
Photo: Mercedes-Benz
The new E-Class and the S-Class before it were some of the first cars in their segments to introduce semi-autonomous features, so it could be said that the Stuttgart company is doing well on the self-driving front. Its battery-powered cars, however, have been something of a fiasco. Mercedes-Benz has only offered three such vehicles up to this point, two under the Mercedes-Benz brand (the B-Class and the A-Class), and one inside the smart lineup (the fortwo electric drive), which is now discontinued.

The Mercedes-Benz cars used modified platforms of the standard versions equipped with electric powertrains developed together with Tesla. Don't let that fool you, though, as their performances were nowhere near those of a Model S, for example. The two Mercedes-Benz EVs were both a lot slower, and boasted a much lower maximum range. In fact, they were no better than other electric vehicles from the rest of the traditional carmakers.

This year, Mercedes-Benz announced it will be focusing on the development of a new, dedicated range of electric vehicles, and a report from Autocar suggests the first car in this new family might get a preview at this year's Paris Motor Show. The publication believes Mercedes-Benz will start with an SUV that will most likely be based on the GLC or GLC Coupe, but will differ significantly in design.

If the rumors turn out to be true, the yet unnamed Mercedes-Benz SUV will face stiff competition from the already established Tesla Model X, but also the planned electric SUVs from Audi and Jaguar. Given the latest activity of the brand's design department, we have no reason to doubt the SUV will be a great looker, and we also have reasons to believe it will be packed with technology goodies, but the real question here is linked to its powertrain. The Model X - and Tesla in general - has raised the stakes to a very high level, and anything below that will be considered second-grade. Forget about falcon doors and panoramic windshield: can Mercedes-Benz build an SUV that accelerates to 62 mph in no more than four seconds and has a maximum range of over 200 miles? We will probably find out this fall.
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About the author: Vlad Mitrache
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"Boy meets car, boy loves car, boy gets journalism degree and starts job writing and editing at a car magazine" - 5/5. (Vlad Mitrache if he was a movie)
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