Comments on: Mercedes Latest Hybrid Announcements Are Déjà Vu Again

By: tapra1

tapra1 — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 11:46:06 +0000

Automotive News reported in Jan. 2009 that Zetsche said Mercedes would “launch at least one new hybrid vehicle a year.”Green News

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 18:22:49 +0000

"Germans on the other hand have the lead in Gasoline and Diesel powered vehicles from the days of Daimler, Benz and Diesel. So they will not switch into Hybrids or any EV soon."

Really?
I think I read AMG said every future vehicle will be a hybrid. So will Merc.'s next C, E, S-class.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 02:40:27 +0000

I don’t buy into those claims like quick charge for ’80% in 30 min.’ would not be detrimental to the long-term reliability of the batteries.

By: Max Reid

Max Reid — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 20:28:16 +0000

French had the expertise in Electric Vehicles since the early 1980s, but the batteries were not powerful enough at that were not powerful enough. They even
used lead acid batteries to build EVs and sold 10,000 vehicles even before 2000.

Since 2000 they improved upon Lithium batteries so much that they were able to sell
Nissan Leaf and similar vehicles for around $ 33,000 and even lesser for some models.

Their idea is to power the EVs using nuclear power plants in which they are World leaders. Now the time has come for the French to mass produce and sell their EVs

They even have a EV which can be charged in 17 minutes.
http://www.renault.com/en/capeco2/vehicule-electrique/pages/vehicule-electrique.aspx

http://www.peugeot.com/en/environment.aspx

Germans on the other hand have the lead in Gasoline and Diesel powered vehicles from the days of Daimler, Benz and Diesel. So they will not switch into Hybrids or any EV soon.

By: Max Reid

Max Reid — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 19:15:04 +0000

Renault is the joint owner of Nissan and they already launched Nissan Leaf in USA & Japan.

Meanwhile Renault will be launching 4 Electric Vehicles in Europe with 1 of them costing only Euro 20,000 before taxes. They are the champions of EVs.

Exclude Renault from the list. Even GM launched Volt.
But those 3 German companies (Benz, BMW & VW) are notoriously tied to Oil.

For now, oil prices are going down because Saudis are supplying more, but as the OPEC spare capacity goes below 1 million b/d, the prices will shoot up again.

By: Yegor

Yegor — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 15:25:36 +0000

I do not care about Mercedes but what do I care about is that - Mercedes paid penalty for violating CAFE standards 21 times in 25 years!!!
And why not to pay penalty when it is only $55 USD per vehicle for every 1 mpg under the standard???!!!
So if you buy Mercedes S 550 gas guzzler (with 17 MPG combined) which costs $93,000 and produces almost 3 times more air pollution than Toyota Prius you will pay $247 penalty!!! (for violating CAFE by 4.5 MPG)
Is not it ridiculous? No wonder Mercedes does not bather about Hybrids - it ain't worth it for them.

CAFE penalty should be $1000 USD per vehicle for every 1 mpg under the standard otherwise they cannot call it a penalty - it is something for gas guzzlers to laugh about at Environmental consciousness people. CAFE penalty should be called "laugh penalty"!

By: Priusmaniac

Priusmaniac — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 06:35:39 +0000

The company is own by Deutsche Bank, owned by the Saoudis. Anything more to say?

There are a certain number of companies that are opposed to hybrids:

Mercedes, VW, GM, PSA (would had an hybrid Peugeot 405 back in 1984), Renault, BMW.

By: Charles

Charles — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 03:35:19 +0000

Wow nobody cars about Mercedes. Me included. Over priced, over fueled and over rated.