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First Mercedes B-Class Electric Drive rolls off line, coming to US soon

Mercedes-Benz is about to give Americans another choice of battery-powered vehicle. Offering more all-electric range than the Nissan Leaf or BMW i3, and with a smaller price tag than the Tesla Model S, the B-Class Electric Drive is officially set to arrive in the US this summer. Indeed, the first examples have begun rolling off the production line in Rastatt, Germany. 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. Scroll below for the press release (Google translated from German). Model offensive: Mercedes-Benz launches first major series for electric cars - the start of production at Mercedes-Benz in Rastatt: B-Class Electric Drive begins For the first time large-scale production of Mercedes-Benz models with internal combustion engine and electric drive on the same line Stefan Abraham: "With the B-Class Electric Drive we are expanding our production portfolio at the Rastatt plant is a highly innovative drive variant." In the Mercedes-Benz plant in Rastatt today through the first B-Class Electric Drive off the line. This makes Mercedes-Benz models are produced with internal combustion engine and electric drive on the same line at the site for the first time. The B-Class Electric Drive is based on the Mercedes-Benz front-wheel drive architecture of the new Mercedes-Benz compact car generation and uses the modular component kit.

Mercedes harkens back to tortoise and hare for AMG GT Super Bowl spot

With just six automakers scheduled as advertisers during this year's Super Bowl, they sure aren't trying to keep things a surprise ahead of the kick off. After already teasing its spot days ago, Mercedes-Benz is the latest to fully reveal a minute-long commercial for the game. The whimsical ad modernizes Aesop's age-old fable about the race between the tortoise and the hare with a dose of muscle from the 2016 Mercedes-AMG GT S. The spot, titled Fable, starts exactly as you would expect, with a forest full of animals congregating to watch the boastful hare race the steady tortoise. Although, this race apparently takes place in Germany because the turtle eventually stumbles upon the AMG factory and its latest twin-turbocharged sports coupe. The commercial isn't quite as gripping as Mercedes' 2013 Super Bowl ad for the CLA-Class with Kate Upton and Willem Dafoe as the devil, but the new one might be an opportunity for much of the audience to see the GT for the first time. See for yourself, above.

Geely and Mercedes-Benz invest $780 million to make electric Smart cars

BEIJING/SHANGHAI — Zhejiang Geely and Mercedes-Benz on Wednesday said they would each invest $388.77 million (2.7 billion yuan) in a China-based venture to build "premium and intelligent electrified" vehicles under the Smart brand. The 50:50 venture has received regulatory approval and will be based in the Chinese coastal city of Ningbo, the Chinese and German automakers said in a statement. Like Mercedes-Benz, smart is a Daimler marque. The venture will have manufacturing capacity in China and sales operations in China and Germany, the automakers said. Geely will lead in engineering the cars while Mercedes-Benz will take charge of their overall look, they said. The partners will each have three executives on the board of directors, with Geely's Tong Xiangbei becoming the venture's global chief executive. Geely has expanded rapidly through mergers and acquisitions since buying Sweden's Volvo in 2010 from U.S. parent Ford. In 2018, it built a stake of almost 9.7% in Daimler and set up a ride-hailing venture in China with the Stuttgart-based carmaker. Its latest announcement comes just over a month after China's Great Wall and Germany's BMW formed a venture to build electric Mini-branded cars in China, the world's biggest market for electrified vehicles where demand for smaller EVs is on the rise. Related Video: