After the unveiling of the Vision EQXX concept at CES 2022, which admittedly had a motor designed by LG, there are now reports that suggest that the German automotive giant could start making its own electric motors from 2024 onwards. Already, EV majors like Tesla and Lucid motors make their own motors and GM has also launched the Ultium brand of electric motors which means right now Daimler's EVs aren't fully vertically integrated.
Mercedes has MMA and MB.A electric architecture in-coming which will be designed in-house and will even feature the EV powertrains that will be manufactured by itself starting in 2024. Mercedes wants to achieve the same level of in-house production capability for its EVs as it does for its internal combustion engine-based vehicles as by 2030 it wants to be an EV first brand.
"We want to control the overall system of electric motor, battery, and power electronics as much as possible, similar to what is the case with the combustion engine," Markus Schaefer, head of development at Daimler, told Automotive News sister publication Automobilwoche. "Until now, the electric powertrains have come from external partners," he added.
The new concept car Mercedes showcased promised a range of 1,000 km per charge
Of course, this move doesn't come without massive capital expenditure from the German carmaker. Mercedes will be building axial-flux electric motors in Berlin while its Untertukheim plant will be responsible for radial electric motors for smaller vehicles.
"We will certainly have to discuss expanding capacity globally for the electric powertrains because we are accelerating significantly in electromobility, and by 2025 half of our vehicles will already be on the market purely electrically or as plug-in hybrids," Schaefer explained.
Interestingly, while the Vision EQXX was shown off with a lot of LG technology in it - the current in-production EVs that Mercedes makes feature motors by ZF on the EQC and Valeo Siemens on the EQS. It should be noted that the EQS despite having the highest drag co-efficient of an electric car on the planet neither is one of the fastest around the block nor has the highest range.
