Online:
Visits:
Stories:
Profile image
By Anonymous (Reporter)
Contributor profile | More stories
Story Views

Now:
Last Hour:
Last 24 Hours:
Total:

1st Mercedes B-Class Electric Drives’ Now Coming Off The Production Line — US Launch Only Months Off

Tuesday, April 22, 2014 22:02
% of readers think this story is Fact. Add your two cents.

(Before It's News)



The highly anticipated Mercedes-Benz B-Class Electric Drive is nearly here — the impressive battery-powered vehicle is set to debut in the US in only a few more months.

The first units have just begun to roll off the production line in Rastatt, Germany. Not a long wait now (unless you’re impatient, like me, that is). :)

Image Credit: Mercedes-Benz

Image Credit: Mercedes-Benz

For those wondering what the big deal is — the B-Class Electric Drive has a lot of buzz behind it for good reason. The wait is, arguably, quite worth it. The qualities that are responsible for the model’s buzz include: a greater all-electric range than the Nissan Leaf or BMW i3; a lower price than the Tesla Model S; and the classy looks that Mercedes is known for. Any surprise that there’s a lot of interest?

Autoblog Green provides some more details on the model:

Featuring drivetrain parts from Tesla Motors, the luxury compact hits all the performance parameters mentioned during its debut at last year’s New York Auto Show. For a refresher, that’s a single-charge range of 200 kilometers (124 miles) along with a 0-to-100 kilometer-per-hour (62 mile-per-hour) sprint in a respectable 7.9 seconds. These achievements comes courtesy of a 28-kWh lithium battery located in the floor of the passenger compartment and a 132-kW (177-horsepower) motor powering the front wheels. Torque specs for the unit seemed to have increased somewhat and are now given as 340 Newton meters (250.77 pound-feet). It boasts an 11-kW charger and can add as much as 62 miles of range to a deleted battery in an hour and a half. Sadly, it is not Supercharger compatible.

The B-Class Electric Drive, which is built on the same production line as the gasoline-powered version, is going to go on sale in Europe around the end of the year and will also come in a right-hand drive version for other markets in 2015. Although pricing has not yet been announced, Mercedes execs expect it to be quite competitive with the BMW i3.

Keep up to date with all the hottest electrified vehicle news here on CleanTechnica. Subscribe to our free EV newsletter or overall cleantech newsletter to never miss a story.

1st Mercedes B-Class Electric Drives’ Now Coming Off The Production Line — US Launch Only Months Off was originally published on CleanTechnica.

To read more from CleanTechnica, join over 50,000 other subscribers: Google+ | Email | Facebook | RSS | Twitter.



Source: http://cleantechnica.com/2014/04/23/first-mercedes-b-class-electric-drives-now-coming-production-line-us-launch-months/

Report abuse

Comments

Your Comments
Question   Razz  Sad   Evil  Exclaim  Smile  Redface  Biggrin  Surprised  Eek   Confused   Cool  LOL   Mad   Twisted  Rolleyes   Wink  Idea  Arrow  Neutral  Cry   Mr. Green

Top Stories
Recent Stories

Register

Newsletter

Email this story
Email this story

If you really want to ban this commenter, please write down the reason:

If you really want to disable all recommended stories, click on OK button. After that, you will be redirect to your options page.