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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.

2014 Mercedes S-Class priced lower from $92,900*

The massively overhauled 2014 Mercedes-Benz S-Class will start at $92,900, not including a $925 destination fee, when it arrives at US dealers in October. That's a 2.8-percent drop over the 2013 S-Class, although Mercedes is fast to point out that a drop in price doesn't equate with a drop in equipment for the executive sedan.
Besides an extra 20 horsepower from the 4.6-liter, biturbocharged V8, the S550 sports a standard panoramic sunroof, keyless start, a rear-view camera and LED headlights, taillights and interior lights. Adding the German manufacturer's 4Matic all-wheel-drive system bumps the S550's price up to $95,900.
If the S550 doesn't quite cut the mustard, you can wait until November, at which point Mercedes will quite happily sell you the new S63 AMG 4Matic for $139,500. Power is also up on the S63, from a max of 563 ponies with an AMG Performance Package to 577 horsepower as standard on the 2014 model.

Mercedes says it's tops in luxury sales for 2012, not BMW

It turns out that Mercedes-Benz North America has legitimate claim to being the top selling luxury nameplate in the US in 2012.
While sources such as Autodata had put BMW in the top spot, registration data from R.L. Polk shows that Mercedes customers registering new vehicles topped the Bavarian automaker in the most recent calendar year. Polk says Benz posted 274,123 registrations, compared with BMW's 268,498.
In terms of sales posted, BMW had bested Benz 281,460 to 274,134. But sales are recorded somewhat inconsistently from automaker to automaker. Some book the sales as soon as they are shipped from factory to dealer. There is perennial gamesmanship between the two German rivals, and the sales numbers suggest that BMW pushed out some extra sheetmetal to dealers in the last four weeks of the year.