German carmaker Mercedes-Benz unveiled big plans of shifting to all-electric vehicles. The company is getting ready to go all-electric by the end of the decade, where market conditions allow.
Tesla is the current leader in the electric car market; the company will have strong competition in the future. Let us see if Mercedes can take over!
The plan relies on a total investment of more than €40 billion ($47 billion), a significant increase in research and development speed, and the addition of eight new battery plants.
Breaking things down, Daimler explained how it planned to launch three pure-electric architectures that year: MB.EA, which will relate to medium and large passenger cars; AMG.EA, which will focus on performance vehicles, and VAN.EA, for light commercial vehicles and vans. Models based on these platforms will be electric only.
“We really want to go for it … and be dominantly, if not all-electric, by the end of the decade,” Chief Executive Ola Källenius told Reuters.
In addition, the company made an eco-friendly decision that all passenger cars and battery assembly sites run by Mercedes-Benz AG will switch to carbon-neutral production by 2022.
From 2025 onward, consumers will also have the option of purchasing an “all-electric alternative for every model the company makes.”
Mercedez-Benz and Tesla are not the only manufacturers of EVs. Jaguar plans to be EV-only starting in 2025, while Volvo and Cadillac have committed to going all-electric by 2030. General Motors is also not far behind and plans to go fully electric by 2035.
All eminent brands are heading in this direction long after Canada and Norway announced to ban internal combustion engines (ICE) soon. Britain also plans to prohibit ICE vehicles by 2030 along with other major countries.
In 2020, approximately 1.8 million EVs were registered in the U.S, three times more than the amount recorded in 2016. The U.S. alone accounts for about 17% of the world’s total EVs. Therefore, it is quite obvious that EVs would soon take over traditional cars. Notably, it is a new way to sustainability, and all automobile manufacturers need to adapt in order to stay in the market.