The electric vehicle (EV) market has been gaining momentum in recent years as a growing number of automakers are launching electric cars to challenge Tesla, a pioneer in producing battery-charged high-performance cars. However, Tesla remains unchallenged as it has already begun to manufacture electric cars for the mass market. The truth is that there are only a handful of carmakers that can truly challenge Tesla’s dominance in global EV market.
Now, Mercedes-Benz is the newest challenger that has launched a conceptual electric compact car that claims to be better than Model 3; Tesla’s electric car for the mass-market. In fact, Daimler has plans to invest the U.S. $589 million in the production of compact electric cars. The production facilities will be set in Hambach in France and the factory will be base to produce more than 10 Mercedes-Benz EV by 2022.
Conceptual Model
The upcoming Mercedes-Benz model will be based on the ‘Concept EQA’ electric car that was showcased in September 2017. The Concept EQA has a range of about 250 miles and it can be recharged without having to be plugged in. Mercedes-Benz has already planned the production of EQC, the electric SUV. The production will start in 2019 at the Bremen plant. The EQC will be based on the GLC platform. Mercedes has already achieved record sales due to its GLA and GLC SUV product line and the EQC is expected to rise in popularity.
Production Advantage
Mercedes-Benz’ fully-electric compact car will be produced at the Hambach plant where Smart cars are being manufactured. Later, the Hambach part will become an integral part of Mercedes-Benz’s production network. All the electric vehicles manufactured in future will be based on Mercedes-Benz’s popular models belonging to compact A-Class, B-Class and GLA models.
The electric models will also share the production platform of their gasoline, hybrid and diesel counterparts. This will help Mercedes to scale up the production process when demand rises. This will help Mercedes to avoid any production glitches similar to the ones that are affecting Tesla. While Tesla has emerged as an expert in battery technology, Mercedes-Benz gains the advantage due to its operational excellence and rich experience in automobile manufacturing.
In future, operational excellence in automobile manufacturing will play a big role in deciding the winner; hence Mercedes-Benz stands a better chance to dominate the market. Do you think that Mercedes-Benz will manage to end Tesla’s dream? Please let us know your opinion by posting comments in the box below.
