Mercedes-Benz continues to scale up production and sales of electric vehicles, and in the second quarter of the year, Mercedes-EQ sales almost doubled to 23,500 units (+90%) and deliveries of xEV models (PHEVs and BEVs including smart) reached 65,400 units (+2%).
According to the company, during the first half of 2022, battery electric vehicle (BEV) sales rose by 134% to 45,400 units as volume models such as the EQE began rolling off the production line. Deliveries of xEVs reached 139,600 worldwide (+14%) during the same period.
Britta Seeger, Member of the Board of Management of Mercedes-Benz Group AG responsible for Mercedes-Benz Cars Marketing and Sales, said: “The electric ramp up is gaining traction: Sales of our fully electric vehicles increased by more than 90% in Q2 and even 134% in the first half of 2022. It shows that we offer compelling electric vehicles that our customers desire.”
Meanwhile, in a related development, Mercedes-Benz and the Chinese company Tencent will establish a joint lab to speed up the German carmaker’s development of self-driving technology.
A joint laboratory for autonomous driving
The Mercedes-Benz Group, through its subsidiary Daimler Greater China, has signed an agreement with Tencent Cloud Computing Beijing for using cloud computing, big data and artificial intelligence technologies and speed up the simulation, testing and application of Mercedes-Benz’s autonomous driving technology.
A joint laboratory for autonomous driving will be established in China to speed up the research and development of Mercedes-Benz in autonomous driving.
Dr Hans Georg Engel, Senior Executive Vice President of Mercedes-Benz China, was quoted as saying: “Mercedes-Benz is the first automobile enterprise in the world to meet the strict legal requirements of L3 automated driving system. In China, we are intensively developing and testing the current and next generation automated driving systems. To succeed in this field, in-depth insight into local complex traffic and market demand is very important.”
Mercedes-Benz and Nvidia’s already have an understanding to develop self-driving technology in China. The new partnership with Tencent will strengthen that. Tencent will also provide its expertise in the field of car networking security to support Mercedes-Benz’s R&D of automated driving in China.