New Delhi:
Luxury carmaker Mercedes Benz India will launch 10 new models across the Maybach, AMG and EQ brands in 2022.At the company’s virtual press conference on Wednesday, Martin Schwenk, Managing Director and CEO, Mercedes-Benz India announced that the country’s first all-electric luxury sedan EQS will be launched in the last quarter of 2022 (October-December). It will be locally assembled at the company’s factory at Chakan, Pune.
With this, Mercedes will be the first global luxury carmaker to assemble EVs in India. The company will also bring the S-Class Maybach in the Indian market in March this year.
In a ETAuto report in September last year, Mercedes had hinted it could start assembling EVs in India. The carmaker introduced its first EV in the country in 2020- EQC SUV at INR 1 crore (which was later increased to INR 1.1 crore) and started selling imported models.
It may be noted that import of cars as CBU ( Completely Built Unit) attract a higher tax in India while for the cars that are assembled in the country as CKD (Completely Knocked Down), their effective import duty is comparatively lower.
Schwenk also highlighted that ‘YOU First’ is the company’s motto for 2022. “The EQS, designed to exceed all customer expectations, has already created a global benchmark as an all-electric futuristic luxury EV. After pioneering the localization of performance vehicles in India with the AMGs, we have decided to start the local production of the EQS, a step in the right direction for us towards mainstreaming luxury EVs.”
He said the company has invested INR 4 billion in the country over the past two years, however did not comment on how much Mercedes would particularly invest in its EV push in India.
Talking about the recurring COVID waves and its impact, he said, since experience is gained to deal with the pandemic in 2020 and 2021, the country is confident of weathering the storm and consumer sentiment is expected to remain strong.
Demand and Sales
The German carmaker is aiming to clock a double digit CAGR for the next two years. It reported a 42.5% growth in domestic sales for the year 2021 to 11,242 units as compared to 7,893 units sold in 2020. Its order bookings for 2021 is over 3,000 cars.
According to the company, the LWB E-Class continues to remain its single highest selling model in 2021 followed by the GLC luxury SUV.
Schwenk said, “We are excited with our performance that entailed sales recovery and increased our market share, in a year that was largely unprecedented and posed multiple challenges to the industry. We were successful in exciting the market with regular product introductions and earned customers’ confidence with our new business model- Retail of the Future.”
Even though Mercedes was the largest luxury carmaker for the seventh consecutive year in 2021, its sales last year was lower than its peak sales of 15,538 cars in 2018.
“Sales volumes remained constricted by substantial challenges in the supply side triggered by the pandemic in Q2, while the semiconductor shortage largely affected the entire Q4 deliveries.”
Going forward, Schwenk said he does not expect the chip shortage to improve drastically for the next six months in 2022.
The car maker is expecting a 30% penetration of online sales for its pre-owned car segment this year.
New Initiatives
Mercedes said its ‘Retail of the Future’ business model is working well and the company has invoiced over 2500 orders since its launch in October last year.
With its focus on EVs, the company said it has introduced the Electric Vehicle Technology Skill Development Course under its ADAM Course where MKSS Institute, Pune will be the first college to start in the EV module under its course.
The luxury carmaker said it would make use of 100% green energy in operations from this year.
Also Read:
The German luxury car brand’s Pune plant has made it mandatory for its suppliers too to have a clear roadmap to go carbon neutral.
Lower CKD duties would mean merely assembling EVs in Pune would bring down prices by at least Rs 20 lakh even as full scale manufacturing is still a long shot
