Mercedes-Benz targeting to be All Electric by 2030
July 23, 2021
Daimler, the parent company of Mercedes-Benz plans to be ready for an all-electric market by 2030. The automaker intends to invest more than 40 billion euros or US$47 billion, between 2022 and 2030 to develop battery operated vehicles to meet this target.
The German luxury carmaker while outlining its strategy mentioned that it would, together with its partners build eight battery plants as they ramp up EV production. Such that from 2025 all new vehicles would be only electric.
Chief Executive Ola Källenius told Reuters “ We really want to go for it…and be dominantly, if not all electric, by the end of the decade”. He also added that by 2025, spending on traditional combustion-engine technology would be near to zero. However, no deadline was given as to when the sales of fossil-fuel cars would stop.
Other car manufacturers such as General Motors & Geely-owned Volvo Cars, are targeting to go fully electric by 2030 & 2035 respectively. Källenius said we need to stop discussing when will the last combustion engine be stopped as its impertinent. Instead the focus should be on how rampantly can you scale up to being 100-percent electric, that is our main focus.
This announcement by Daimler comes just a week after the European Union proposed 2035 ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars. Targeting to switch faster to zero- emission EVs in line with the measures to combat global warming. A number of carmakers had announced a series of investments in scaling up their electric vehicle capabilities, ahead of the EUs announcement. Stellantis mentioned earlier this month that they would electrify their line-up by investing more than 30 billion euros by 2025.
Daimler expects electric and hybrid electric cars to make up 50 percent of its sales by 2025, earlier than the previous forecast of achieving this by 2030. The company plans to launch three electric platforms by 2025, one to cover its range of passenger cars and SUVs, second for vans and third for high-performance vehicles. Daimler’s four new battery plants will be in Europe and one in United States the company plans to announce its new European partners for battery production soon.
In order to counter China’s dominance of battery production, the EU has been pushing hard to build out battery capacity. Volkswagen, one of the rival companies is targeting to build six battery cell plants in Europe.