At this year’s New York Auto Show in April, Mercedes-Benz says it will unveil a production-ready version of its extended-range B-Class E-Cell Plus intended for the U.S. market.
This compact debuted as a concept at last year’s Frankfurt show. It was the result of plans announced in 2009 for it and other green cars including a hydrogen fuel cell vehicle.
The Mercedes EREV will be limited production, and part of a greater initiative by M-B to boost U.S. sales by 20 percent starting in 2013.
In question is how close to the concept it will be. Automotive News did not report specifications when it learned of these plans at the Detroit Auto Show during an interview with Mercedes’ global sales chief Joachim Schmidt.
Previous reporting of the E-Cell vehicle’s design describe it as capable of all-electric range of 62 miles, and total range of 373 miles.
The powertrain relies on a Deutsche ACCUmotive lithium-ion battery pack, electric motor and 67-horsepower, 1.0-liter turbocharged three-cylinder gasoline generator.
Total power output is 136 horsepower (100 kw). The gasoline genset reportedly operates at lower vehicle speeds to charge the battery, and at higher road speeds assists the motor in propelling the car.
Acceleration from to 0-62 mph takes about 11 seconds, according to Mercedes-Benz, with top speed of 93 mph.
So it’s no Volt killer, but with that big German star on the front grille, it will certainly offer competition to the humble bowtie.
Exact launch date, volume, prices, and production specs have yet to be announced.
It’s likely M-B is only just putting a horse in the EV/EREV race without betting the farm that it will trump all others.
Or more to the point, last year Daimler’s director of fuel cell and battery drive development, Christian Mohrdieck, explained the company’s belief that the EV movement is shrouded with a lot of “hype.”
In discussing EVs last year with plugincars.com, Mohrdieck’s sensibility sounded close to the opposite side of the spectrum from that of Renault-Nissan’s Carlos Ghosn who forecasts greater market acceptance for electrified vehicles.
“People have very high expectations in terms of quality and reliability of the car,” said Mohrdieck. “There will be an increasing number of battery electric vehicles and fuel cell electric vehicles, but it won’t just jump from zero to 100,000 cars a year.”
Well it better if Ghosn’s projection of 1.5 million Renault and Nissan EVs by 2016 is to come to pass.
In this light, you can see Mercedes’ tone contrasts markedly from EV evangelist Ghosn who in sweeping his gaze across the spectrum of world automakers, said certain competitors are “naively reacting” – bringing electrified offerings perhaps, but not with enough gusto.
Whether Mercedes will be timid, or on target is a question we’ll only know the answer for later. It would be reasonable however to expect slow roll-out and cautious proceeding in M-B’s otherwise ambitious plan to expand sales of B-Class and other classes of combustion-powered cars in the next few years.
We shall learn more about Mercedes’ first extended-range EV this April in New York.
Source: GM-Volt.com
