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Mercedes Benz B-Class Electric Drive

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I have heard that the B Class ED will be available in CARB states only in 2014, but the plan is to roll it out nation wide in 2015. I guess only time will tell if this is actually the case. It's really a shame they went with such a small battery on this one. With a 35-40 kWh battery, this car really could have been a great bridge between Model S and Gen III.
 
I have heard that the B Class ED will be available in CARB states only in 2014, but the plan is to roll it out nation wide in 2015.

Press releases are cheap and they can say just about anything. Future press release, " We evaluated the sales, and due to no demand for EV's, we will just offer the B-Class ED in CARB states for regulatory compliance."

One of the auto manufacturer's groups penned the following on Oct 19, 2012 as a request to EPA for waiver from CARB:

http://www.globalautomakers.org/sites/default/files/document/attachments/JointCommentsCAWaiverRequest10-19-12.pdf

"It is highly unlikely that the required infrastructure and the level of consumer demand for ZEVs will be sufficient by MY2018 in either California or in the individual Section 177 States to support the ZEV sales requirements mandated by CARB. EPA should therefore deny, at the present time, California’s waiver request for the ZEV program for these model years. During the interim, Global Automakers and the Alliance believe that California and EPA, with full auto industry participation, should implement a review for the ZEV program similar to the mid-term review process adopted under the federal GHG and CAFE regulations for MYs2017 through 2025."
 
One issue for all the competition except BMW is that Germans generally don't buy foreign cars. Plus, Germany will have their own Frankenplug - Euro spec that none of the foreign competition use. All the others use CHAdeMO, Chameleon or for Tesla, the modified Mennekes for high powered DC.

What is the German market share for the German companies? 55%? That includes Volkswagen and BMW owned foreign brands.

If you include Fiat owned Chrysler American companies market share in the USA is about 50%.

Germany was the biggest foreign market for the Tesla Roadster.

Toyota owns 75% of the German Hybrid market.
 
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Originally Posted by gg_got_a_tesla viewpost-right.png

The Merc B-class ED has NO DC charging at all; Supercharger or Chademo.
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I completely agree. Why build a car without any DC charging ability?

Yeah, like what happened with Tesla Roadster, Toyota RAV4EV, Honda FitEV, BMW ActiveE, etc...
 
I visited the Detroit Auto Show yesterday and of all the electric cars, the B-Class stood out as my favorite (besides the Model S of course). It was far bigger in person than I had expected - more of a small crossover than a hatchback. The styling and interior was classic and refined, unlike the ultra-modern i3 design. Sure, it would be ideal if they offered quick charging with it but with only a 28 kWh battery it's not likely you'd want to take it on a road trip and would likely be well-suited for typical suburban driving. If they stick to pricing in the $40s I could very well be looking at the car to tide me over until the Model E hits the market.
 
I visited the Detroit Auto Show yesterday and of all the electric cars, the B-Class stood out as my favorite (besides the Model S of course). It was far bigger in person than I had expected - more of a small crossover than a hatchback. The styling and interior was classic and refined, unlike the ultra-modern i3 design. Sure, it would be ideal if they offered quick charging with it but with only a 28 kWh battery it's not likely you'd want to take it on a road trip and would likely be well-suited for typical suburban driving. If they stick to pricing in the $40s I could very well be looking at the car to tide me over until the Model E hits the market.

I'm hoping the GEN III has similar size and feel. Not too Prius-like, but not a stubby version of the Model S either
 
One issue for all the competition except BMW is that Germans generally don't buy foreign cars. Plus, Germany will have their own Frankenplug - Euro spec that none of the foreign competition use. All the others use CHAdeMO, Chameleon or for Tesla, the modified Mennekes for high powered DC.


that is false, the Germans buy foreign cars from all countries, USA, Korea or Japan. They do not buy pick-ups trucks, but nobody buy that in the world except in USA.
 
that is false, the Germans buy foreign cars from all countries, USA, Korea or Japan. They do not buy pick-ups trucks, but nobody buy that in the world except in USA.

That's not really true either. Pickup trucks are actually quite popular in many other markets too, such as Africa and Oceania (though admittedly the pickups we buy are a completely different breed from the ones Americans buy).
 
I visited the Detroit Auto Show yesterday and of all the electric cars, the B-Class stood out as my favorite (besides the Model S of course). It was far bigger in person than I had expected - more of a small crossover than a hatchback. The styling and interior was classic and refined, unlike the ultra-modern i3 design. Sure, it would be ideal if they offered quick charging with it but with only a 28 kWh battery it's not likely you'd want to take it on a road trip and would likely be well-suited for typical suburban driving. If they stick to pricing in the $40s I could very well be looking at the car to tide me over until the Model E hits the market.

We are trying to find the right car to replace our Volt when its lease is up in October. The B was top of my list, tip I read somewhere it could be priced in the high-50s, which would be outrageous. If its in the mid-40s, it would be back to top or very high on the list.

We're on the X list (around the P1500 mark), but can't really justify having both an S and X. Plus it wouldn't be out til next year, so we'd need something in October. We might however trade the S (60kWh) for an X (85 kWh) when the time comes.
 
"But stick the B to a 400V charger and it'll be full in one and half hours."

Yet another journalistic mistake, or did Mercedes decide to add DC fast charging?

GSP


There is not a "400 volt" charging option for the Mercedes B Class. In the USA, it will charge at up to 40 amps of up to 250 volts of AC electrical power (10kW) to the onboard Tesla charger. It's precisely the same charger used in the Tesla Model S, future Model X, Toyota Rav4 EV and even the Tesla produced private network of "Superchargers" charge stations themselves (there are 12 each of these 10kW chargers, 4 in series on each of the 3 phases to produce 120kW total DC power into the battery).

In Europe, Mercedes will likely use a slightly different onboard charger so that it can charge on 3 phase 230 volt AC power with a Menekkes Type 2 plug that is common there, just as the Tesla Model S does in the European market.

Mercedes Benz and all other German auto makers, in addition to General Motors and Ford in the USA, have started a consortium to introduce a competing high powered DC quick charging standard to counter the several other world standards already in existence, and designed to be slower than the Supercharger network from Tesla.

That new German quick charge standard (it is not interchangeable with the USA version) is not going to be an option in the Mercedes B Class ED, however it is optional in the BMW i3 and GM Spark EV. Currently, only about 100 compatible cars and a dozen or so of those actual charging stations exist in the anywhere world.

In contrast, the CHAdeMO quick charge DC standard has 3500 stations, with 1000 in Europe, 550 in the USA, and well over 130,000 compatible cars:

*Nissan LEAF - over 45,000 in the USA and over 100,000 worldwide
*Nissan e-NV200 (coming 2014)
*Citroen C-Zero - not sold in USA
*Mitsubishi i-MiEV - over 30,000 worldwide with its variants C-Zero & iON
*Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV (coming to USA in 2015)
*Peugeot iON - not sold in USA
*Kia Soul EV (coming 2014)
*ZERO motorcycles
*Tesla, except Roadster, with adaptor (available April 2014)

In addition, Tesla also has its very fast DC quick charge network called Supercharger with approximately 500 charging stalls built in the USA and Europe. Tesla has delivered over 35,000 cars.

The final western world quick charging network is used only by Renault and called Chameleon. It can charge from 3 phase AC sockets at either 22kW or 43kW. They have sold tens of thousands of cars.

Unfortunately, since Mercedes will predominately use the B Class ED to meet California Air Resources Board (CARB) mandates for Zero Emission Vehicles (ZEV), they don't need to offer any logical electric vehicle features like quick charging to sell their "compliance vehicle" in the expected extremely low volume just like the following:

Honda Fit Electric Vehicle (EV) and Fuel Cell Electric Vehicle (FCEV), Toyota Rav4 EV and FCEV, Fiat 500e, GM Spark EV, Ford Focus EV, VW eGolf, Hyundai FCEV, Kia Soul EV, and Mazda EV.