NEW DELHI — Mercedes-Benz plans to take pole place in India’s luxurious electrical car market, its nation head informed Reuters, serving to to cement its title because the top-selling luxurious automotive model and maintain forward of rival Tesla.
Mercedes will launch three electrical vehicles in India this 12 months and would be the first firm to construct a luxurious EV within the nation, Martin Schwenk mentioned in an interview. The automaker additionally will arrange a fast-charging community nationwide and may also manufacture batteries domestically sooner or later, he mentioned.
“Now, we’re actually beginning our aggressive offensive into the EV market. Within the subsequent 5 years, 25 p.c of our gross sales (in India) will probably be electrical,” Schwenk mentioned. “Our ambition is to steer the market within the electrical aspect as nicely.”
Mercedes’ inroads come as EV rival Tesla just lately placed on maintain plans to enter India as a consequence of excessive import taxes on EVs.
Mercedes will start its push in India with an imported electrical mannequin of its AMG EQS 53 4MATIC efficiency automotive that it launched on Wednesday.
This will probably be adopted by a regionally assembled, electrical model of its flagship S-Class sedan, the EQS, and an imported, electrical folks provider later this 12 months.
The AMG EQS may have a driving vary of 580 kilometres (360 miles) on a single cost and be priced at round $307,000 (24.5 million rupees).
India is essentially a small- and low-cost automotive market, by which luxurious fashions make up 1 p.c of whole annual gross sales of about 3 million. The luxurious EV market is even smaller and largely untested.
Mercedes, which already sells its imported EQC SUV in India, would be the first to assemble a luxurious EV within the nation, permitting it to cost the automotive competitively over rivals due to a decrease tax fee of 5 p.c on regionally constructed EVs versus one hundred pc tax on imported fashions.
This can give it an edge over Germany’s Audi and BMW, and a transparent lead over Tesla.
The 5 p.c tax fee is “fairly an incentive” for purchasers to go electrical, Schwenk mentioned.
To minimise issues over vary, Mercedes will arrange 140 EV chargers nationwide, together with ultra-fast ones that may be charged as much as 80 p.c in 40 minutes, by year-end, he mentioned.
The corporate will even take into account regionally manufacturing EV batteries and different elements if it begins promoting ‘1000’s’ of a mannequin, although present volumes had been too small to justify such an funding, Schwenk mentioned.
“You want a sure scale to make sense. I can’t exclude that for the longer term however at this stage, it isn’t a part of the plan,” he mentioned.
Globally, Mercedes plans to take a position greater than 40 billion euros ($40 billion) by 2030 to develop battery EVs.
Schwenk expects India to align with the corporate’s plans of shifting to EVs by way of pace and product launches.
“We will probably be according to the worldwide aspiration of changing to electrification as a result of we imagine we will be as quick, or generally perhaps even sooner, than another markets,” he mentioned.