Latest news with #Mercedes-BenzEQS
Hindustan Times
03-06-2025
- Automotive
- Hindustan Times
Huawei Maextro S800 is a ₹1.19 crore EV aiming to crack luxury car market; targets Mercedes-Benz, Bentley and others
Huawei Maextro S800 has taken design inspiration from Rolls-Royce and Mercedes-Maybach models. Notify me After Xiaomi and Sony, now Huawei has grabbed the attention of the automotive world with the launch of the Maextro S800, which is a luxury sedan with a price tag exceeding the one million yuan mark, which translates to a whopping ₹ 1,19,19,460. With this, Huawei and its auto manufacturer partners are aiming to crack the luxury car market in China. The Maextro S800 broke cover in Shenzhen last week, and it is designed to go up against ultra-luxury cars from brands such as Mercedes-Benz EQS, Rolls-Royce Spectre and Volkswagen AG's Bentley. The car can be dubbed as a model offering the look of Rolls-Royce, luxury elements as Mercedes-Maybach and technology of Huawei. Also, it promises a whopping 838 bhp peak power on tap. Interestingly, this is not the first time Huawei tried its hand in the automotive domain. The technology giant has previously produced Aito branded models with Seres Group. Those vehicles grabbed a lot of eyeballs in the 500,000 yuan and above category in China. Maextro S800: What it offers The Maextro S800 comes with a design that gives a Mercedes-Maybach vibe. The front profile has a closed panel with vertically stacked sleek LED headlamps at both ends. Thee is a silver-coloured mesh at the front bumper. Moving to side profile, there are large wheels with multi-spoke design. Other design elements include sleek chrome trims, flush fitting door handles, coupe roofline etc. The lidar panel is visible at the top edge of the windshield. Inside the cabin, the car gets high-end luxurious theme. It gets a crystal shimmer ceiling, pioneered by Rolls-Royce. This means the cabin's roofline looks like a starry night sky. The car comes with a triple-screen dashboard and more than 32 ADAS sensors including both radar and lidar as well as a suite of camera that help enable Huawei's advanced driver-assistance technology. Built on a bespoke, purpose-built platform, the Maextro S800's EV comes with multiple powertrain options. Check out Upcoming EV Cars in India. First Published Date: 03 Jun 2025, 06:54 AM IST
Hindustan Times
28-05-2025
- Automotive
- Hindustan Times
Planning to buy the i7? BMW has something interesting for you
The BMW i7 eDrive50's ex-showroom cost now includes registration and GST charges, making it more accessible for customers. Check Offers In a special incentive for customers of its flagship electric luxury sedan, BMW India has announced it will pay for the registration cost of the i7. The BMW i7 eDrive50 is priced at ₹ 2.05 crore, and the ex-showroom price now includes the registration and GST charges as well. The move will help make the i7 more accessible and attractive to interested customers, against its closest rival, the Mercedes-Benz EQS. BMW i7 ex-showroom price now includes registration & GST cost The new price, inclusive of registration and GST (incl. compensation cess) on the BMW i7, is applicable across all dealerships, the company said. However, the price excludes Tax Collected at Source (TCS), as well as other local taxied levied, and insurance. Speaking about the announcement, Vikram Pawah, President and CEO, BMW Group India, said," BMW India has always looked at electric mobility as a holistic concept. We are the pioneers and leaders in the luxury electric mobility space with a novel approach to electric products and services. The introduction of a uniform price for the customers of BMW i7 will ensure price parity for our valuable customers, regardless of which location they want to register their vehicle in. With this innovative offer, our focus is on customer centricity and encouraging the adoption of electric mobility with added benefits. As the vehicle of choice of leaders and luminaries with next-level style and substance, the i7 will continue to shape forwardism in every way." BMW i7: Features The BMW i7 is the electric equivalent of the 7 Series, the brand's flagship sedan. The model comes with the same striking design language, with the massive illuminated grille and BMW Crystal lights. The cabin features a curved display with the BMW Live Cockpit Professional includes a freestanding BMW Curved Display. There's also the BMW Interaction Bar and the Rear Seat Entertainment Experience with BMW Theatre Screen. The model also gets multifunction seats with a massage function, active seat ventilation and a rear console. You also get a suite of driver assistance systems on the car. BMW i7: Specifications Powering the BMW i7 eDrive50 is a single electric motor with 443 bhp. The electric sedan is equipped with a 101.7 kWh battery pack and a claimed range of 603 km (WLTP) on a single charge. The battery takes about 10 hours and 45 minutes via an 11 kW AC charger. BMW will also sell you the i7 M70 xDrive variant with 641 bhp and 1015 Nm that sends power to all four wheels. The claimed range stands at 560 km on a single charge. Do note that the offer is only applicable to the eDrive50 variant. Check out Upcoming EV Cars in India. First Published Date: 28 May 2025, 09:28 AM IST
USA Today
02-05-2025
- Automotive
- USA Today
Mercedes-Benz Drive Pilot 95: The fastest certified Level 3 self-driving system
Mercedes-Benz Drive Pilot 95: The fastest certified Level 3 self-driving system Show Caption Hide Caption Self-driving taxis coming to Atlanta Lyft is partnering with May Mobility to bring a fleet of self-driving Toyota minivans to Atlanta starting this summer, according to Lyft. Fox - 5 Atlanta Mercedes-Benz chairman Ola Källenius settles back in the driver's seat of the Mercedes-Benz EQS sedan and reaches into the center console. 'Popcorn?' he asks, as the opening credits of the original Ghostbusters movie play out in the center of high-definition Hyperscreen that stretches across the dash. There's a crisp rat-a-tat-tat from the snare drum, then the bass kicks in as Ray Parker Jr rasps: If there's something strange... In your neighborhood... Who ya gonna call… As PR stunts go, it's a bit… ahem… corny. But what's not corny is that fact that the Mercedes-Benz boss and I are going through the motions of watching a movie while the EQS drives itself along the autobahn for miles at a time at a smooth and steady 59 mph, demonstrating a key performance attribute of Mercedes-Benz's upgraded Level 3 autonomous driving system, Drive Pilot 95, weeks before the official media drives. Drive Pilot, the world's first legally approved Level 3 autonomous driving system, made its debut in 2022. Its operating parameters were tightly controlled, limited to traffic traveling at no more than 40 mph on German autobahns. Drive Pilot 95 will, under certain conditions, allow Mercedes-Benz S-Class and EQS models equipped with the $6,600 option to self-drive for an indefinite period in the right lane of autobahns at speeds of up to 95 km/h (59 mph). Owners of cars equipped with the original Drive Pilot system will be able to upgrade to Drive Pilot 95 free of charge. Mercedes-Benz plans to introduce Drive Pilot into the U.S., which it sees as a big market for autonomous driving technologies and is currently working on changing the system's operating parameters to suit U.S. road and traffic conditions. While first movers and fast movers like Tesla and Chinese automakers have been grabbing the headlines in terms of autonomous driving (though Tesla's much hyped Full Self-Driving option is not a certified Level 3 autonomous drive system) Mercedes-Benz has been quietly working at the frontiers of the technology. The slow pace is deliberate, insists Källenius. 'Mercedes-Benz's philosophy is you deploy a little bit less than what the technology can do, but you continue to develop the technology,' he says. Engineers confirm that in addition to working on a U.S.-optimized version of Drive Pilot that will allow faster operating speeds than Drive Pilot 95, it plans to have the system able to offer full Level 3 autonomous driving capability at speeds up to 80 mph in strict Germany by the end of the decade. Luxury concepts: The 2025 Mercedes-AMG SL 63 Manufaktur Golden Coast is a limited-edition masterpiece Ola Källenius is heading the company that invented the automobile through one of the most challenging and transformative eras of the automotive age. Born in Västervik, Sweden, in 1969, he did two years compulsory military service before gaining a degree in finance and accounting at the Stockholm School of Economics before studying management at the University of St Gallen in Switzerland and joining Daimler-Benz in 1993 as a management trainee. He's no dry, colorless beancounter, though. During his career, Källenius worked with Ron Dennis at McLaren's futuristic headquarters in England, overseeing production of the Mercedes SLR McLaren hypercar, has run the company's F1 powertrain business, Mercedes AMG High Performance Powertrains, and headed AMG from 2010 to 2013. He speaks passionately and knowledgeably about F1 — he's excited about the prodigiously talented 18-year-old Italian, Kimi Antonelli, stepping into Lewis Hamilton's seat at the Mercedes F1 team when the seven-time world champion goes to Ferrari next year — and has just spent his own money on a Mercedes-AMG SL 63. 'It's a fabulous car. I wanted one I could keep for my son to drive one day.' Ola Källenius well understands developing cars that can drive themselves is just one thing that's challenging the best and brightest engineering brains at Mercedes-Benz. They're also trying to pivot the three-pointed star away from the internal combustion engine that has powered its products for more than a century, and towards EVs; trying to figure out how make vehicles that use fewer resources and dump less carbon into the atmosphere through their entire life cycles. And most importantly, they're trying to figure out how to do all that while staving off the threat from China's more nimble and lower cost automakers. In case you missed it: Mercedes-Benz opens sales for more ultra-luxurious residences in Miami 'The automotive industry is going through a profound change,' agrees Källenius, who says that change is being driven by a systemic shift towards decarbonization and CO₂ neutrality, where the electricity for EVs will come from non-fossil sources. 'We can debate how long it will take,' he says, 'but the destination is zero emissions. That is an enormous industrial and infrastructure undertaking, but I don't think too many people are debating the destination.' If you doubt that statement, follow the money, insists Källenius. He says that in a disruptive business environment new venture capital is usually deployed to unseat the incumbents, and it's clear where that money is not going in the auto industry. 'Of the many billions in venture capital out there, none is going into replicate the [internal combustion engine] business model that exists now,' he says bluntly. And that's why, despite worrying signs that consumer demand has slowed, Mercedes-Benz remains committed to EVs. 'It's better to play offense than defense,' Källenius says. Sitting back and waiting and watching would conserve capital, he admits, implicitly acknowledging the vast sums Mercedes-Benz is spending on the development of EVs that, so far, aren't selling in large numbers and generating large profits. But that strategy, he says would put the company in danger of missing the tipping point when electricity does become the mainstream automotive powertrain. Källenius agrees the journey to that tipping point is taking longer than everyone expected but points out that it took a while before the iPhone took off and crushed the BlackBerry. 'Now, I'm acutely aware the car and the industrial footprint of the auto industry is not the same as that of the mobile phone industry,' he says. 'But if and when the tipping point happens and you're not there, that could be [an existential threat] for a company.' As mainstream automakers began to embrace the technology, Mercedes-Benz bullishly announced the company would be building mainly EVs by 2030. Ola Källenius tapped the brakes on that statement in an interview earlier this year, saying it meant the company would not be investing in new internal combustion engine-based vehicle architectures beyond 2025. 'We have not announced the date when the last internal combustion engine Mercedes-Benz will go away,' he said, 'but we have put our capital allocation and engineering resource into preparing the company for a full EV lineup.' In July, however, Källenius announced Mercedes-Benz planned to spend about $15 billion on research and development to ensure its internal combustion engines would meet ever tightening emissions regulations well into the 2030s. 'An overhaul of the combustion portfolio was always part of the plan,' he insists. 'On the vehicle side, there's a benefit to be an incumbent. The whole infrastructure is there, so we're able to create flexibility in our product offering well into the 2030s, because we don't know when the tipping point [to EVs] will come.' Källenius admits that building internal combustion engine vehicles alongside EVs well into the 2030s means Mercedes-Benz will be a much more complex business than the switch to pure EVs production promised. But he says sticking with internal combustion engines will also generate a contribution margin on a fundamentally sound combustion business also for longer, and that will ultimately help Mercedes-Benz profitably make the transition to EVs. 'We think that we can manage through this incredibly intense technological and product development cycle,' Källenius says. 'Our balance sheet shows we have the liquidity and the firepower to do this. We know what the destination is. The destination is a zero emission, intelligent digital vehicle. But if the tail of the internal combustion engine vehicle is longer [than we expected], then we will take advantage of that.' While this transition is underway, does Mercedes-Benz, along with other western automakers, need protection from the growing wave of low-cost Chinese EVs entering their markets? An unabashed free trader, Källenius pushes back hard on the idea that heavy tariffs on Chinese imports will give western automakers breathing space to get their businesses into shape to compete. 'I the understand political reasons, and I think we should do whatever we can within WTO rules to create level playing fields in the main economic regions, but an escalating tariff based potential trade war is the wrong direction,' he says. 'But even if it could protect some players in the short term, that is dangerous in the long term. The heat of competition has always been the best way to create innovation.' What about problems with the Chinese market itself, where fierce competition between dozens of domestic automakers combined with slowing demand as the economy there has cooled has impacted both sales and profitability? Källenius likens the current situation in China to that in the U.S. and Europe, where hundreds of automakers existed at the beginning of the 20th century, but very few survived to see the 21st. 'I believe there will be some kind of consolidation in China,' he says. 'How long that will take is difficult to say, but that will keep an enormous competitive pressure and intensity in that biggest car market in the world for the foreseeable future.' Photos by MotorTrend
Business Mayor
29-04-2025
- Automotive
- Business Mayor
Mazda Miata EV Potentially Previewed By Unique Motor And Battery Patents
Slowly but surely, the automotive world is going electric. With the Kia EV9 and Hyundai Ioniq 9, you can now get a battery-powered three-row family-friendly SUV. Luxury customers can grab the Mercedes-Benz EQS sedan instead of a traditional S-Class, and even Ford offers an all-electric F-150 pickup truck, the Lightning. There are a lot of great choices in the EV world today, and one automaker may be poised to electrify its most legendary vehicle. Related Mazda revealed some details about the next MX-5. And it's time to get excited. Is The Miata Going Electric? It Sure Could Be According to some U.S. patent applications, which were published on April 10, 2025, Mazda may be developing a battery-powered Miata sports car. The Hiroshima, Japan-based company doesn't explicitly call out the Miata in these documents, instead referring to an 'electric automobile,' but just look at the included photos. That sure ain't a reborn B-Series compact truck or an all-electric CX-90 SUV. According to one of these patent applications, the vehicle in question is designed to have 'sufficient installation quantity of the battery, providing the superior layout of the motor for the yaw moment of inertia by making the motor be close to a central portion, in the longitudinal direction, of the vehicle as much as possible.' In simple terms, it sounds like an all-electric Miata might have a centrally mounted motor – or at least, the traction motor fitted just ahead of the rear axle where it powers the wheels through a short driveshaft – for better weight distribution and enhanced dynamics. But that's not all. Mazda Patent Application Another key aspect of this design is the placement of battery cells. It appears Mazda engineers are sprinkling modules throughout various parts of the car, at the front of the traditional floor tunnel, in the rear, and, curiously, even ahead of the passenger seat. Mazda Patents Movable Battery Pack Mazda Patent Application And that is where things get especially interesting, because Mazda has also developed a movable battery pack. Yes, you read that correctly, a battery pack that can be moved. As printed in another patent application, the battery on the passenger side is bulky and heavy, 'the longitudinal weight balance or the lateral weight balance of the vehicle can be adjusted by moving the assistant-driver's-seat side battery by means of the battery-moving device.' The application continues, 'It becomes possible by this adjustment to properly set the weight balance depending on existence or non-existence of the passenger seated in the assistant driver's seat, the weight of the driver seated in the driver's seat, or the like.' So, basically, a future electric Miata could use a portion of its bulky and heavy battery pack to improve vehicle handling, rather than just making it worse. Of course, patent applications and actual, drivable production vehicles are two different things, but Mazda sure has some clever ideas here. Mounting the motor in the center of the vehicle and using it the power the rear wheels through a short driveshaft makes a lot of sense, as does having smaller battery packs installed throughout the vehicle, rather than just in the floor. But that movable battery assembly raises some big questions. How effective could this really be? Does it work reliably? And if you have a giant battery assembly immediately ahead of the passenger – as shown in the patent illustrations – does this negatively impact vehicle comfort? Mazda Patent Application These questions – and many more – will have to be addressed if Mazda ever builds an all-electric Miata or introduces these new ideas in a different vehicle.
Yahoo
27-02-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Mercedes Is Testing This Firm's Solid-State Cells
Mercedes-Benz starts road tests of solid-state battery design by US-based developer Factorial Energy. The solid-state cells promise greater range, thermal safety, and decreased weight compared to traditional lithium-ion cells. The FEST (Factorial Electrolyte System Technology) cells use a floating cell carrier as the materials expand when the battery charges and contract when it discharges. Mercedes-Benz has been one of several automakers backing Boston-based solid-state battery tech startup Factorial, even as mass production of these batteries has perpetually been just over the horizon. And now this effort appears closer to bearing fruit, as the automaker begins tests of a new lithium-metal solid-state battery composition in an actual electric vehicle. With some modifications, the solid-state prototype battery pack was installed in a Mercedes-Benz EQS sedan late last year, but the actual road test began this month. The automaker worked with Mercedes-AMG High Performance Powertrains (HPP) in the UK—its subsidiary specializing in F1 technologies—on integrating the battery researcher's FEST (Factorial Electrolyte System Technology) cells into a prototype battery pack. The new battery pack design uses a floating cell carrier as the cell materials expand when the battery charges, and contract when it discharges. Mercedes has already obtained a patent for this carrier. Among other things, solid-state designs promise a reduced battery weight, higher thermal safety, greater energy density per unit mass, and up to 25% more range when compared to a lithium-ion battery pack of the same weight and size. "This breakthrough demonstrates that solid-state battery technology has moved beyond the laboratory and into real-world application, setting a new benchmark for the entire automotive industry," said Siyu Huang, CEO and co-founder of Factorial Energy. Just how much range could this EQS prototype offer? Over 621 miles or 1,000 kilometers, Mercedes-Benz says. Of course, this is the automaker's internal estimate for now and not one based on the WLTP or EPA testing. But if this design can be mass produced with the resulting EVs offering a range of over 600 miles without a significant hike in price, this would certainly be a game-changer in the EV world. "Developing an automotive-scale solid-state battery underlines our commitment to innovation and sustainability," said Markus Schäfer, member of the Board of Management of Mercedes‑Benz Group AG and chief technology officer of development and procurement. "We will gain crucial insights into possible series integration of this cutting-edge battery technology." It remains to be seen whether Factorial's solid-state battery tech, once it enters production, will be able to revitalize the automaker's EV sales in the second half of the decade, which have taken a significant hit in 2024. For now, months of road tests are still ahead before any decisions are made regarding mass production. Greater range is always useful, but there are other issues keeping EV sales where they are, and this includes the current charging infrastructure, vehicle prices, software, and other issues. Ultimately, solid-state designs will have to achieve some level of cost parity with lithium-ion compositions very quickly before their other advantages can be felt by consumers. Mercedes did not offer a timeline for possible mass production of Factorial's cells—such a step is expected to be some time away—as other automakers scramble to scale up their own solid-state designs. Will solid-state designs revitalize EV sales once several new compositions with greater ranges arrive on sale, or are EVs facing a variety of other important barriers? Let us know what you think in the comments below.
