Auto & Transportation

When electrification becomes a necessary topic, Mercedes Benz has offered a "powerful medicine" for this transformation road.

On the evening of July 22, Mercedes Benz released a new electrification strategy, saying that it will make full preparations for the realization of all-round pure electric by 2030 in the market where conditions permit. According to its latest strategy, Mercedes Benz will provide pure electric models for all segments it serves in 2022. From 2025, all newly released model architectures will be pure electric platforms, and each model will provide customers with pure electric version selection.

As a result, Mercedes Benz's transformation plan has officially changed from "electric first" to "comprehensive electric". In order to promote this transformation, Mercedes Benz has also invested heavily. From 2022 to 2030, its investment in pure electric vehicles will exceed 40 billion euros.

Mercedes Benz brand has full confidence while its ambition is revealed. In addition to a series of transformation plans, Mercedes Benz has not relaxed its profit target. In its expectation, the company's profit margin in the pure electric era will be similar to that in the internal combustion engine era.

"The electric transformation is accelerating, especially in the luxury car segment where Mercedes Benz is located. The turning point of the industry is approaching. As the global market realizes the transformation of pure electric by 2030, we will also be ready. " Kang LinSong, chairman of the board of directors of Daimler AG and Mercedes Benz AG, said.

Under the irresistible wave of electrification, competitors born in Sri Lanka emerge one after another. In the face of the gradual situation, this traditional luxury brand seems to be beginning to take it seriously.

All new models will be available in pure electric version

In the pure electrification transformation planning of traditional car enterprises, the platform is an important topic.

According to the technical plan of Mercedes Benz, from 2025, the architecture of all newly released models will be pure electric platform, and all newly released models will provide pure electric version. Meanwhile, Mercedes Benz will also release three pure electric vehicle architecture platforms in 2025, covering medium and large passenger vehicles, high-performance electric vehicles, MPV and light commercial vehicles respectively.

Not long ago, Volkswagen Group also mentioned the platform strategy in its 2030 new auto strategy, and plans to launch the scalable system platform (SSP platform) in 2026. In Volkswagen's planning, the SSP platform will be applicable to all Volkswagen models after its launch. In contrast, Mercedes Benz's platform planning is more subdivided.

In addition to planning the production of pure electric models after 2025, Mercedes Benz is also upgrading its current global production network to gradually increase the proportion of pure electric models. According to the plan, a total of eight Mercedes Benz electric vehicles will be produced in seven factories on three continents next year.

In addition, Mercedes Benz is also developing vision eqxx. According to the official introduction, this model has an actual range of more than 1000 km and strives to maintain the power consumption of 100 km kwh in single digits (more than 6 miles per kWh). It is worth noting that after the 2022 vision platform, the new vision technology will be applied to the global vision platform, which is worthy of attention.

By 2022, all passenger cars and battery plants operated by Mercedes Benz AG will be carbon neutral. Officials say that so far, Mercedes Benz's 56 plant in Sindelfingen has been carbon neutral.

After 9 battery factories, 8 cell factories will be built

In terms of batteries, the core parts of electric vehicles, Mercedes Benz's plan is to put into operation more battery factories and improve its own R & D strength.

Mercedes Benz said that its battery capacity demand will exceed 200 gigawatt hours in the future. In this regard, in addition to the nine battery factories already planned, Mercedes Benz plans to build another eight cell factories with global partners. The next generation of highly standardized will be suitable for more than 90% of Mercedes Benz passenger cars and light commercial vehicles.

In the next generation of power batteries, Mercedes Benz will work with partners such as battery materials company silanano to improve energy density by using silicon carbon composites in the anode. This cooperation will break through the existing endurance performance and further shorten the charging time. In terms of solid-state batteries, Mercedes Benz is discussing with its partners the possibility of developing batteries with higher energy density and higher safety.

In addition to the battery, the layout of the charging network is also important. Official information shows that Mercedes Benz charging network has become one of the largest charging networks in the world. Mercedes Benz is currently cooperating with shell to expand the charging network. By 2025, the network will have more than 30000 charging piles in Europe, China and North America.

In fact, the current "battery shortage" is sweeping the automotive industry. Not only Mercedes Benz, but also many automotive enterprises around the world are preparing for the production of battery factories. Volkswagen Group also planned the construction of battery plants in its 2030 new auto strategy. According to its plan, by 2030, the annual capacity of Volkswagen's six Super battery plants in Europe will be as high as 240 gigawatt hours to ensure battery supply.

The profit margin in the era of pure electricity is similar to that in the era of internal combustion engine

In the next eight years, Mercedes Benz will invest more than 40 billion euros (about US $47 billion) in the pure electric transformation plan. This number is not low. After all, Xiaomi automobile, which was famous for bringing heavy capital into the Bureau, only invested 10 billion yuan in the first phase, and is expected to invest 10 billion US dollars in the next decade. However, Mercedes Benz obviously maintains high confidence in the pure electric transformation. While investing a huge amount of money, it is also committed to maintaining its profit goal in the pure electric era.

In 2020, Mercedes Benz proposed that "by 2025, the sales of plug-in hybrid and pure tram models will account for 25%". According to the latest plan, "by 2025, this proportion will reach 50%, and the sales of new vehicles will have been basically transformed into pure electric models by 2030".

According to Mercedes Benz's plan, the investment in internal combustion engine and plug-in hybrid technology in 2026 will be 80% lower than that in 2019. Based on this, Mercedes Benz expects that the company's profit margin in the pure electric era will be similar to that in the internal combustion engine era, so as to ensure the goal of double-digit profit margin.

One of the important fulcrums for the realization of this goal is to increase the net income of single vehicle by grasping the pricing strategies of high-end electric vehicles such as Maybach, and the income growth of digital services will also contribute. In addition, Mercedes Benz will also take cost reduction measures. Breakthroughs in the overall battery platform, scalable electric vehicle architecture and battery technology are expected to reduce the proportion of vehicle battery cost.

Kang LinSong said that this is a far-reaching capital replacement. By driving this accelerated transformation and maintaining the profit goal, we will continue the long-term success of Mercedes Benz. Thanks to the high-quality, strong and motivated team, I firmly believe that we will succeed in this wonderful new era.

It is worth noting that despite the radical electric transformation strategy, Mercedes Benz did not mention when to stop selling fuel vehicles. Kang LinSong explained: "we should move the focus of the debate away from the issue of when to produce the last internal combustion engine, because it is not important. How to rapidly expand the scale and close to 100% electrification is the problem, which is the focus of our current attention. "

In the current automobile market, Volvo, Volkswagen, GM and other traditional have also successively put forward a comprehensive electrification strategy. Under the background that a number of automobile enterprises will catch up with Tesla, it is unclear whether Mercedes Benz, the leader of traditional luxury cars, will break the deadlock.