German luxury carmaker Mercedes-Benz India will now be making its electric sport utility vehicle (SUV) – EQS SUV 580 – in India, as the only market outside its Tuscaloosa plant in the US, as the company sees local demand for electric vehicles (EVs).
This is not the first EV that Mercedes will be making in India, though. It has already been making the EQS sedan here for the last 18 months and has sold 500 units of the car.
The EQS SUV 580 is currently not available in India. The car, with a 122 kWh battery and an 809 km range (on a single charge), will be priced at Rs 1.4 crore.
Santosh Iyer, managing director and chief executive officer of Mercedes-Benz India, said that they felt that having an entire portfolio – sedan and SUV – of the EQS range would help boost sales and offer a more holistic option to the customer.
Iyer added that the EQS SUV is the third luxury EV launched by the company this year.
“Mercedes-Benz is deeply committed to the Indian market with an additional investment of Rs 200 crore in 2024 towards manufacturing operations, new product start-ups and digitisation of manufacturing processes. The localisation of the EQS SUV manifests our local competencies, creates value for Indian customers, and supports the government’s vision of ‘Make in India’,” he added.
This takes Mercedes’ cumulative investment in India in manufacturing capacity to Rs 3,000 crore.
The German luxury carmaker has six EVs comprising the EQA SUV, EQB SUV, EQE SUV, EQS SUV, EQS 580 sedan, and the ultra-luxury Mercedes-Maybach EQS 680 SUV. Between January and September this year, the company launched the EQA, EQS SUV 580, and the Mercedes-Maybach EQS 680 SUV in India – all EVs. The EV sales growth thus stands at 60 per cent in the first half (H1) of 2024.
In fact, the penetration of EVs has doubled – from 2.5 per cent of overall sales at the end of 2023 to 5 per cent in H1 2024.
Mercedes now has an order book of 2,000 cars in India and hopes to end the year with double-digit growth.
As such, Mercedes posted its best-ever first half calendar sales in H1 2024, delivering 9,262 cars between January and June this year. This is a 9 per cent year-on-year growth. Around 55 per cent of this comes from SUVs and 25 per cent from top-end vehicles (those priced above Rs 1 crore). The Maybach was the fastest-growing portfolio in H1 2024 – clocking 108 per cent growth. The company did not share a segment-wise breakup of sales.
Luxury carmakers are focusing on bringing in more models that will be made in India.
Earlier in May, British luxury brand Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) India, owned by Tata Motors, started making completely knocked down (CKD) units of the “flagship” Range Rover and Range Rover Sport cars outside Solihull in the United Kingdom. India, thereby, became the first country since 1970 to make the Range Rover and Range Rover Sport cars. The cars manufactured in India reduced prices by 18-22 per cent, JLR said.
JLR too plans to launch six new EVs in India by 2030, starting with the Range Rover battery electric vehicle (BEV) next year.
First Published: Sep 16 2024 | 5:20 PM IST
