Mercedes Bringing Tesla-Powered EV to U.S. Next Year | Hacker News Reader

Mercedes Bringing Tesla-Powered EV to U.S. Next Year

wired.com

43 points3am21 comments

I bought a Mercedes a couple weeks ago from a dealership on the peninsula. The sales manager I was talking to told me that Tesla has picked up "several" cars from them in the last couple years to retro-fit to electric.

If I remember the details correctly, he said they'd gotten, I think, 2 CLS's, and recently they picked up an S but had fit issues with it.

EV needs to 1) deliver the same features, performance, and convenience as current vehicles at a comparable price or 2) deliver considerable more than current vehicles to just an increased price.

It's good to see a luxury car maker introduce an EV and the Mercedes-Benz name will certainly lend itself to sales but the B-class is a weak offering for the U.S. market. Luxury hatches have never been a good seller here and any measure of success has been with performance-related models, which this isn't. I suspect the thinking at Mercedes-Benz was the U.S. has no frame of reference in the B-Class so introducing an EV model is safe bet. I don't see this selling well because it will likely be down on luxury relative to other MB cars (see previous C230 hatchback failure) and also down on performance (again, compared to other MB cars). Vague numbers like zero to 60 MPH in "considerably less than 10 seconds" is never a good sign.

Is "considerably less than 10 seconds" that bad of a sign? I took that to mean in the neighborhood of 7 seconds, which is just fine for most usage. Probably depends on factors like temperature and charge level, which is a new problem for car makers trying to describe the performance of a vehicle.

I think you're underestimating the utility some people attach to owning a pure electric vehicle (and without research, I would guess wealthier than average people). So they don't have to reach parity with or exceed ICE powered vehicles to succeed.

[EDIT] - I think this doesn't see the forest for the trees. Regardless of the model B's quality, Tesla's battery pack and powertrain are becoming a platform for other car makers - definitely a positive for the company's development.

[EDIT2] - Noting your interest in cars, I freely concede that I don't see this as a car lovers' car. But that doesn't stop there from being plenty of minivans on the road.

> Is "considerably less than 10 seconds" that bad of a sign? I took that to mean in the neighborhood of 7 seconds

People put a lot of money in performance tuning to get rid of 0.5s in the lower scale, but even in the slower numbers improving by 1s often takes engine swapping, super-charging and/or other sorts of mods. Saying 'considerably less than 10s' is like saying 'your salary will be considerably more than 1k' which could be 1.2k as well as 4k, but when you hear that you know it's about the former.

No one who cares that (crazy) much about cars will ever buy a Mercedes B Class. I’m sorry, but what you are talking about here couldn’t be any less relevant for the prospective target group of this car.

Who the fuck even cares about 0-60 times?! Nobody (for all reasonable definitions of nobody in this context), that’s who.

With its range and charging requirements this car won’t even leave the city all that often.

I don’t know, maybe for Americans the concept of buying a Mercedes as a boring family car is alien, but that’s what the B Class is. It’s not a luxury or performance car.

I'm not American and feel welcome to check out my other comment in this thread.

Even if "considerably less than 10 seconds" means 9 seconds, that means the B-class could keep up with a 1982 Ferrari Mondial. In city driving, nobody cares about 0-60 times.

They should have taken the opportunity to make it rear-wheel drive (or at least all-wheel drive). Mercedes generally cares about driving fun, given how so much of their line up is rear (or all-wheel) drive. Too bad it was left front-wheel drive.

FWD is an economical solution and targetted at the less demanding crowd. BMW, Merc, Lexus and the higher end cars are mostly RWD (or AWD with more power on the rear) because it makes easier to achieve a proper distribution of weight and decent handling properties, and obviously the fun factor. Also RWD/AWD is kind of forced upon when you need to transfer a lot of power to the ground - in an FWD layout it turns out to be too complicated and much less effective. That said, as a BMW and thus RWD fan, I must say it doesn't make much sense to produce a RWD in the Mercedes A/B-klasse line, because owners wouldn't gain much or even notice. There was a curious case after the success of BMW 1-series, it turned out in a BMW's poll study that the vast majority of the customers didn't even know it's RWD (which is sad and dangerous) not to mention recognizing the advantages of this layout. The current BMW 1-series platform already supports an FWD layout (to share with Mini) and very probably the next line of 1-series will be FWD, only leaving the coupe (upgraded to 2-series) as RWD. It raises concerns about brand perception, but that's another story. Wrapping it up - RWD rocks, but it's not worth it when you are targeting a less demanding customer group.

Why do you call the hatch-back C class a "failure"?

When Mercedes released the W204 C-Class platform in 2008 it dropped coupe and hatchback options. It was a new platform and they chose to offer only the sedan at first. Of course in 2010 they introduced an SUV on that platform, then in 2012 they introduced a coupe. The W203 coupe wasn't a failure but it wasn't as high of priority as introducing the W204 sedan.

Admittedly not a MB expert but I was referring to the W203 2000 - 2006 C230 hatchback, aka Sports Coupe. Generally not well-loved for legitimate reasons.

Because MBs during that era were basically Chryslers. MB picked up on the cost cutting when they owned Chrysler and produced a lot of junk during that time.In later years they got back to producing quality products.

I don't really agree with this. I mean, it's open to some interpretation. But if you look at technology sharing during the merger, it was all one direction. Mercedes engineers were notoroiusly resistant to share their cutting-edge work or be influenced by Chrysler. And what you saw was several outdated Mercedes platforms being reused on Chryslers: The outgoing E-Class platform reborn as the 300C, the outgoing C Class platform as the Crossfire.

Now it is true Mercedes suffered through a lot of QC problems during that era. But I've studied this and evidence points primarily to maintenance issues. Around that time, powertrains were refined, many models shedding superchargers for naturally aspirated engines, a move to pure synthetic oil was made in the more mass-market models, and to compete with TCO numbers from BMW and Audi, Mercedes set 15k mile oil change intervals. They pulled them back in 07/08, released the stunningly reliable W204 C-Class, and things have been on the mend.

I'd love to buy one but would be loathe to have to deal with the typical MBUSA dealership to do it. Tesla definitely have the advantage on that part of the car sales equation.

  Mercedes is just as vague with battery capacity and charge 
  times, claiming the B-Class can add an additional 60 miles 
  of range in less than two hours when plugged into a 
  240-volt outlet.

"A 240-volt outlet" only provides half the information you need-- like specifying the maximum PSI of an air compressor without saying what its flow rate is. A 15 amp 240 volt outlet can only provide half as many watts as a 30 amp one.

The biggest Tesla 240-volt charger draws 100 amps = 24KW.

The Superchargers run at 440 volts and ~400 amps = 90KW.

The "smallest" 240V American household circuit would be 30A (e.g. for a clothes dryer). Electric range is 50A. I'm not aware of any common demand for 240V at only 15A.

It was an example, bro.

There actually is a standard NEMA connector for 240V 15A loads-- NEMA 6-15. It's less than common, as you'd expect.

(Running a 240V 15A circuit would be easy, all cable is rated to 600V anyway, it'd just be regular 14/2 romex. I've never actually done that, but it's possible. (Clothes dryers and ovens always use 6/3 or whatever, which will let you run 120V components off the hot-neutral circuit. 240V 14/2 would be hot-hot.))

I wonder if Tesla is going to do anything with the "Falcon Wing Doors" on their upcoming mass-market version? The Falcon Wing could be modified to decrease the size of the passenger door opening, resulting in a stronger and lighter body by reducing the degree to which the door openings compromise the structure of the car body. If they ensure that the floor of the car is fairly low, then they can require a passenger to step over a low wall to get into the car. 12 inches (30 cm) wouldn't be too onerous, but would do wonders for the structural integrity of the vehicle. The rear hatch could be kept low to the ground to enable easy loading of cargo. Passengers in folding rear-facing rear seats could use the rear hatch as an exit.

Just speculating out loud. Tesla's real car is probably not going to look anything like this.

The wired article linked me to Mercedes' other EV, whose Porsche-powered multi-motor system gives it incredible traction control, and helps bring the car's price tag to more than $500,000.

http://www.wired.com/autopia/2013/03/mercedes-benz-sls-elect...

An interesting step, considering it seemed like Tesla was continuously working it's way down in price range. Of course, prices haven't been listed for these Mercedes/Tesla EVs, but my guess would be they'd cost more than the roadster.

Mercedes is also going to produce the SLS AMG Electric Drive. It's a bit pricier but also far more exciting than the B-class.

It's nice to see increasing numbers of electric options. Certainly a promising sign for the technology.

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