Mercedes-Benz has laid the foundation for a future filled with electric cars, and its competitors should be very worried.
The automaker plans to enter the fully electric car market firing on all cylinders. In a press release posted on Monday, Mercedes said it will build electric vehicles in six plants on three continents. It will also produce a “global battery network” to supply the cells for its forthcoming EQ brand. The network will be comprised of five facilities in the U.S., China, and Germany.
Mercedes included a map of its production facilities with the electric plants highlighted in blue. As you can see, three of the six plants will be in Germany, one in France, another in China, and the last in the U.S.
Every major automaker is working to create electric vehicles but few plans are as ambitious as Mercedes’. It wants to electrify its entire portfolio by 2022, meaning there will be at least one hybrid or fully electric option for all Mercedes-model series. More specifically, it will offer “more than 10” fully electric cars out of a pool of 50 electrified vehicle types.
Mercedes will finish construction on a second battery factory in Kamenz, Germany by the end of this year and prepare for the production of the Concept EQ at its Bremen factory. The Mercedes EQC, set to hit the market in early 2019, is the company’s first next-generation electric car. It will serve as a platform from which Daimler’s new Mercedes-Benz EQ car brand will be based. The Mercedes EQ line of luxury electric vehicles is expected to compete directly with Tesla models.
“As batteries are the heart of our electric vehicles we put a great emphasis on building them in our own factories,” Daimler wrote on its website. “With our global battery network we are in an excellent position: As we are close to our vehicle plants we can ensure the optimal supply of production. In case of a short-term high demand in another part of the world our battery factories are also well prepared for export.”
Legacy automakers are desperately working to shift the conversation of electric cars away from Tesla, but it has proven a difficult task. With the Bolt, General Motors successfully launched a rival to the affordable Model 3 and outsold all available Tesla models last October and November. Others have been less fortunate. In fact, Mercedes was forced to discontinue its very own B-Class. But if it can find a way to ramp up production—something Tesla and others have struggled to do—it could soon speed ahead of its rivals.