The parent company of Mercedes-Benz said Thursday it's speeding up the timetable for switching to electric vehicles. Although it added a caveat about assuming market conditions allow it, Daimler AG announced the luxury brand expects to "be ready to go all electric at the end of the decade," CNBC reports. The commitments the company made Thursday include:
- Offering all new vehicle architectures in electric only from 2025 on. The launches planned for that year include passenger cars, light commercial vehicles, and performance cars.
- Making every model available in an all-electric version, starting in 2025.
- Increasing research and development of electric vehicles. "In total," the company said, "investments into battery electric vehicles between 2022 and 2030 will amount to over 40 billion euros"—about $47 billion US.
- Collaborating with other companies on establishing eight factories to produce battery cells, per the AP.
- Having a climate-neutral model lineup in place by 2039.
The money to pay for the switch to electric is coming from the sales of greenhouse gas-emitting gasoline- and diesel-powered vehicles, and Mercedes hasn't yet committed to a date for pulling its internal combustion engines off the market. The automaker's new forecasts expect half of Mercedes sales to be from battery-only or plug-in hybrid cars by 2025; the figure until now was 25%. They accounted for about 10% in the first half of this year. "This step marks a profound reallocation of capital," Daimler's boss said Thursday. "The tipping point is getting closer, and we will be ready," he said. (The European Union has drafted a plan to effectively end the
fossil fuel economy.)
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