BERLIN, April 25 (Reuters) - Mercedes-Benz on
Tuesday launched its last new combustion engine model - the next
generation of the E-Class, which will be built in Germany and
China and go on sale in Europe in the third quarter of this
year.
Follow-up models of the E-Class will be built on a new
platform adapted for battery-powered cars, though this
generation will already be available as a hybrid.
"Building a battery in retrospectively is always a
compromise," Chief Technology Officer Markus Schaefer said at a
media roundtable. "We have an all-electric E-Class, and it's the
EQE."
The car features an infotainment "hyperscreen" across the
front of the vehicle, rear-seat entertainment and a projection
of the Mercedes star in the brakelights, with entertainment
options adapted for audiences in markets from Europe to South
Korea and China.
It will go on sale in the United States by the end of the
year and China in early 2024.
Mercedes-Benz is targeting exclusively battery-electric
sales globally by 2030, but has caveated this ambition by adding
it will only aim to do so "where markets allow".
Still, the carmaker said in July 2021 it was dropping
investment in combustion engine and plug-in hybrid technology by
80% between 2019 and 2026 and investing 40 billion euros ($44
billion) in electrification between 2022 and 2030.
Other carmakers have begun sounding the death knell on
combustion engine models, with Volkswagen announcing
the Golf 8 would be the last combustion engine edition of a
vehicle which for decades topped Europe's bestseller list.
BMW has kept its options open, not committing to
an exit date from combustion engine vehicles. It will stop
producing combustion engines in Germany from 2024 but will still
produce the cars with engines imported from elsewhere.
($1 = 0.9072 euros)
(Reporting by Victoria Waldersee and Ilona Wissenbach
Editing by Mark Potter)
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