German carmaker Mercedes-Benz plans to take pole position in India's luxury electric vehicle market, its country head told Reuters, helping cement its title as the top-selling luxury car brand and keep ahead of rival Tesla.
In India, Mercedes-Benz will launch three new electric cars
this year, be the first company to assemble a luxury EV, and will set up a
fast-charging network nationwide, Martin Schwenk said in an interview. The
company might also manufacture batteries domestically in the future, he said.
"Now, we are really starting our aggressive offensive
into the EV market. In the next five years, 25% of our sales (in India) will be
electric," Schwenk said. "Our ambition is to lead the market in the
electric side as well."
Mercedes' inroads come as EV rival Tesla recently put on
hold plans to enter India due to high import taxes on EVs.
Mercedes will begin its push in India with an imported
electric model of its AMG EQS 53 4MATIC performance car that it launched on
Wednesday. This will be followed by a locally assembled, electric version of
its flagship S-Class sedan, the EQS, and an imported, electric people carrier
later this year.
The AMG EQS will have a driving range of 580 kilometres (360
miles) on a single charge and be priced at around $307,000 (24.5 million
rupees).
India is largely a small- and low-cost car market, in which
luxury models make up 1% of total annual sales of about 3 million. The luxury
EV market is even smaller and largely untested.
Mercedes, which already sells its imported EQC sport-utility
vehicle (SUV) in India, will be the first to assemble a luxury EV in the
country, allowing it to price the car competitively over rivals because of a
lower tax rate of 5% on locally built EVs versus 100% tax on imported models.
This will give it an edge over Germany's Audi and BMW, and a
clear lead over Tesla.
The 5% tax rate is "quite an incentive" for
customers to go electric, Schwenk said.
To minimise concerns over range, Mercedes will set up 140 EV
chargers nationwide, including ultra-fast ones that can be charged up to 80% in
40 minutes, by year-end, he said.
The company will also consider locally manufacturing EV
batteries and other components if it starts selling 'thousands' of a model,
though current volumes were too small to justify such an investment, Schwenk
said.
"You need a certain scale to make sense. I will not
exclude that for the future but at this stage, it's not part of the plan,"
he said.
Globally, Mercedes plans to invest more than 40 billion
euros ($40 billion) by 2030 to develop battery EVs.
Schwenk expects India to align with the company's plans of
shifting to EVs in terms of speed and product launches.
"We will be in line with the global aspiration of
converting to electrification because we believe we can be as fast, or
sometimes maybe even faster, than some other markets," he said.
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