Mercedes Benz To Launch New Brand And All Electric Competitor To BMW's i3 THIS Year

Mercedes-Benz's parent company Daimler is closing in on the launch of a new all-electric brand to rival BMW i, according to reports in the German newspaper Handelsblatt.

The brand would feature new all-electric models produced by Mercedes and sister brand Smart, but wouldn’t include hybrid versions of existing models.

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MDarringer - 6/23/2016 6:51:24 PM

0 Boost

I stopped being hopeful when I got to "Smart" as the partner. The Smart 4-2 is a ridiculously bad car and I don't hold out much hope for the new one by Renault.

TomM - 6/24/2016 7:40:08 PM

+1 Boost

I believe that there are reasons to produce a car that is specific to being an EV - instead of having a conversion of current cars. It is clear that the placement of the battery packs - alone - means that it requires its own engineering. Just as Hybrid cars that were based on production gas vehicles tend to have no or limited Trunk space - the cars that were designed from the get go to be a Hybrid (Prius) had better ergonomics. Ultimately - the entrance of other manufacturers in the EV world spells a real problem for Tesla - not just because of its monopolistic sales/service programs - but also because it will create competition for the Lithium of the world. Currently - the world does not produce enough lithium to feed the Tesla Factory alone.