Mercedes-Benz EQS to CKD in India; Malaysia next?

Mercedes-Benz has plans to set up local assembly (CKD) operations of the Mercedes-Benz EQS in India later this year, said Martin Schwenk, the CEO of Mercedes-Benz India, as reported by Automotive News Europe.

Schwenk also said that Mercedes-Benz will be the first luxury carmaker to assemble EVs in India and expects the CKD EQS to be on sale in the fourth quarter of this year.

EV incentives in India can be rather complex as it varies from one state to another. On a national level, the government has allocated a USD 1.4 billion incentive package that provides direct incentives on the purchase of electric vehicles, and USD 136 million package to support the deployment of charging infrastructure.

Their goal is to have electrified vehicles (EVs, hybrids, plug-in hybrids) contributing 30 percent of four-wheeled motor vehicle sales by 2030.

Also read: Mercedes-Benz EQS unveiled, 770 km range and ready for L3 autonomous driving

The government subsidises INR 10,000 (RM 563) for each kilowatt-hour (kWh) of battery capacity in the vehicle, estimated to be 50 percent of the battery cost. However, the EVs have to be priced at less than INR 1 million (~RM 87.8k) in order to qualify, which would obviously disqualify the EQS.

Also read: India is giving out RM 12.4k to EV buyers - Tata and Mahindra immediate beneficiaries

Hence the CKD operation is needed to navigate around the 100 percent import duties on fully-imported cars, and push to electrify the brand’s portfolio in Asia.

"Now we bring a car from an imported to a domestically produced vehicle because it has underlying volume and product potential," Schwenk added.

Closer to home, Mercedes-Benz Thailand has confirmed that it will be assembling the Mercedes-Benz EQS later this year, with Thailand-assembled high-voltage battery, at its Samutprakarn plant.

Meanwhile, Mercedes-Benz Malaysia has said that the company is looking into local assembly (CKD) of electric vehicle (EV) models at its Pekan plant. Though it’s highly dependent on various factors beyond the company’s control such as Malaysia’s direction for low carbon mobility.

Also read: Mercedes-Benz Malaysia mulls CKD EV models, local battery recycling

To recap, Mercedes-Benz offers two variants of the non-AMG EQS globally, the EQS 450+ and EQS 580 4Matic, with their specifications as below:

Also read: Rich Malaysians have to wait: Mercedes-Benz EQS to launch in Indonesia in 2022, after Thailand