- So, I didn't plan on filming a video this week
or another video, but this just happened yesterday
and I had to take advantage of it.
I had to talk about this because I got so many feelings,
so tie it into the studio now, I'll tell you
what I'm talking about.
(techno music)
So here's what happened.
Yesterday, Mercedes unveiled...
How's that light?
You like better light?
Yesterday, Mercedes unveiled their first all electric SUV
and it looks great.
I think Mercedes has a good shot at making a legit
electric vehicle that a lot of people will wanna buy.
That's for sure.
I am a fan of Mercedes.
Obviously they're tremendous at what they do, but...
However, in this day and age, I just don't feel you can
make something that is
almost like a first-generation EV
and try to stay competitive.
And we have all these wacky headlines.
Look at some of these headlines that people are
posting out there.
So, like this one from Bloomberg stating that, "Mercedes
"unveils first Tesla rival in 12 billion dollar attack.
"EQC to join Porsche, Audi, Jaguar models
"in electric car race.
"CEO says, 'We're going all in. It's starting right now.'"
But it's not.
It's really not.
It's starting, maybe, at the end of next year, of 2019.
In the US market, 2020.
So,
I don't know.
I don't know how that translates to right now
and when you saw the unveiling,
I don't know what they were doing.
They talked for an hour about the history of Sweden.
- It feels like sometimes you need
to invest early and have the patience to harvest later.
Take Sweden as an example again.
Visionary politicians granted tax cuts
on computer purchases back in the 1990s.
They also fostered deregulation of certain tech industries
and increased spending on fast internet.
That early investment helped the nation
open up to tech and innovation.
Today, nine out of ten Swedes are using
the internet on a very regular basis.
- Somehow, that's related to the electric car
that they're trying to unveil?
And then they didn't even announce the specs.
Here's what I know.
Mercedes, the three things that I care about when I'm
looking at a new electric vehicle, like styling,
okay, that's fine, we know you've got that.
But the important things are, range - how far does it go?
Is this a commuter, something I just have around my house
or to work and back.
Or is this something I can, kind of be,
my all-purpose vehicle, I can go on road-trips with.
So range and charging network and how that
works, and all that.
So the functionality of it.
Two is the price.
Where does this land?
It's a Mercedes, so I imagine it's gonna be expensive.
It all makes sense.
I don't know why it wouldn't be.
Pretty much all other Mercedes are pretty premium cars
and they're well made, they deserve that premium price,
for the most part, so fair enough.
So, what is the price?
We don't know.
And then the third thing is availability.
When am I gonna be able to get it?
Well The Verge actually did some stuff on this
and here's the car.
The Verge posted some stuff saying it's a
402-horsepower SUV with over 200 miles of range.
It's been two years after the initial concept.
They labeled it the "dawn of a new era."
Production will start in Germany in 2019 and it will
eventually spread to China and potentially,
(motorcycle engine)
motorcycles, and potentially to the companies
US plant in Tuscaloosa down the road.
Now, here's the deal.
We're gonna just do a side by side comparison here
of these three cars.
So you've got the Tesla Model X, the Jaguar I-PACE, which
is a fair competitor.
I've done a video on that.
I'll put a link to it in the description down below.
And this car.
To just see where they stack up.
And again, we don't really know the price, we don't know
the official range.
And, you know, there's a lot that they didn't unveil.
To me, that is the most surprising thing.
You get the CEO, you do this whole event, you fly all these
people out here, you do hours and hours of media training
and you don't give us the meat.
It's all sizzle and no steak.
All right.
There's my rant about the launch and whatever
the heck was going on there.
Let's just look at these specs, or the specs that are
rumored and see how they stack up and if this is
really going to be a compelling vehicle in there
as Bloomberg reports 12 billion dollar attack.
Oh. Okay. Here we go.
So let's start with range and the Mercedes Benz EQC doesn't
officially have an estimated range yet.
Which again, I'm not sure how you do the launch without
those details, but people are estimating it at
around 200 miles.
The Jaguar I-PACE gets 240 miles and the Tesla Model X 75D
gets 237, giving the Jaguar I-PACE the edge
here by about 3 miles.
Next you have the 0-60 time, so a lot of people use this
in terms of acceleration, the quickness.
The Mercedes Benz EQC is reported to go 4.9 seconds 0-60,
The Jaguar I-PACE 4.5,
and the Tesla Model X 7 at 4.9
giving the nod here to the Jaguar I-PACE yet again.
Of course they did that 0-60 test, that little drag race,
and it won although it was kind of unclear.
But in any event, all these cars are
gonna be relatively quick.
Next when you're looking at top speed, I would say
arguably a less important feature, but one that still people
like to look at.
The Mercedes Benz EQC is reported to cap out at
112 miles per hour, which is extremely low,
I think for this kind of high performance vehicle
and what we're used to from high end electric cars.
The Jaguar I-PACE at 124 and the Tesla Model X 75D at
155 although I will say my friend Dan just did a test
and he wasn't able to get, I believe, above 142 or 143
so we'll see.
But in any event, the Mercedes Benz EQC falling
well behind here.
The Tesla getting the nod on this category.
Next we have battery and this is important because
the size of the battery tends to speak to the longevity
of the battery as well as how well it can hold a charge,
those kinds of things.
The Mercedes Benz EQC is reported to have around
80 kilowatt-hours.
The Jaguar I-PACE at 90 and the 75D Model X of course at 75,
again giving the nod to the Jaguar I-PACE.
Next we have weight and this is an interesting
category and I look at it a little bit different.
Now, some people may think the lighter vehicle, the better,
and while that will yield better performance based on
the weight to horsepower ratio, I think
there's a different thing to consider.
Now we don't know what the Mercedes Benz EQC weight will be.
The Jaguar I-PACE is around 5,886 pounds
and the Tesla Model X is over 6,000 pounds.
Now, this is the gross vehicle weight and the reason I
bring this up is because in the United States there is a
specific tax break for vehicles over 6,000 pounds.
That actually saves you a ton of money on a Tesla Model X
because it crosses that threshold whereas the Jaguar I-PACE
literally, if it were 200 pounds more, it would save you
about $25,000 in taxes on it.
So a huge difference there based on this one metric
that you probably typically wouldn't look at in this way.
So, I bring it up because it does have such a significant
difference when it comes to the actual price of the vehicle.
So with that lens that we're looking at the Tesla Model X
here gets the nod.
Now horsepower, this is another one that people
really like to look at.
Again, it doesn't exactly translate
to acceleration or quickness, but it often is essentially
a measure of how performative the vehicle is.
So the Mercedes Benz EQC comes in at 402,
which is pretty good.
That's a quick car.
That's a very powerful vehicle.
The Jaguar I-PACE comes in at 394, which because of the
lighter overall weight, gives it that 0-60 time
beating out the Model X.
But the Model X just blows them all away
with 518
horsepower.
And so here again, the Tesla Model X gets the nod.
Now lets take a look at where it actually comes home for
a lot of folks, and that is price.
Again, the Merdeces Benz EQC, no clue, not sure.
I imagine it's a Mercedes and this is a premium car,
it's gonna be priced maybe similarly to these
other ones, maybe higher.
We don't really know yet.
Again, I don't know why you do a launch of a vehicle
and you don't give these key specs that really matter to
people that are looking to buy it.
So the Jaguar I-PACE comes in at 69.5 US dollars and the
Model X is at 79.5.
Now, this is, you know there are all kinds of tax breaks and
different incentives and things.
And again that over 6,000 pound gross vehicle weight
for the Model X gives you an added bonus,
so I did a video on that previously
where it shows you actually save money by getting a Model X
because of that, but it doesn't apply to everyone so for now
we'll just give the nod here to the Jaguar I-PACE.
All right so let's add all these up and see
who the winner is.
So the Mercedes Benz EQC comes in with a goose egg.
Zero of the categories we just looked at, which I argue are
the most important ones for people buying
an electric vehicle.
It didn't win any of them and it may, maybe if the specs
change or if something comes out again.
We don't have a lot of details on it, even though they
officially launched it.
The Jaguar I-PACE comes in with four of these categories,
which is great because that is one above the
Tesla Model X 75D giving the Jaguar I-PACE the overall win
in this comparison.
Now BMW and Audi are also coming out with some vehicles.
We don't have a lot of specs on them yet so I don't wanna
include them in this, but of course I'll revisit
this down the road.
Availability is also something that I didn't touch on.
Of course, the Model X from Tesla, you can go buy right now,
get within a few weeks.
In fact, if you do it before September 16th, you'll get
free unlimited supercharging for life, which is also
something I didn't touch on.
Trying to make this just a vehicle comparison, not a overall
eco-system comparison because Tesla pretty much
wins that always.
So I wanna look at the vehicles assuming that the rest of
the parts will come online and they'll figure out ways
to partner and figure that out.
And with that, the Jaguar I-PACE, it is coming.
It is almost here.
You can go order one today.
However, it looks like the second half of 2018 or
possibly early 2019 is when you'll get it.
We'll see how their production ramp up goes compared to
how Tesla's done it.
You know, one of the funny things is that while a lot
of these traditional manufacturers were making fun of
Tesla for not being able to manufacture cars and how
they could do it so quickly.
It's odd that the Jaguar I-PACE is taking so long
and also this Mercedes Benz EQC is reported to be
available late 2019 for European markets and then
early 2020 for the US market.
So, I don't know why they were making fun of Tesla when
they seem to be struggling as well in this category.
We'll see how it goes.
In general, I am a fan of these really big car makers with
these great reputations getting into this space,
I just wish they really would kind of push that bar forward.
I mean it's really difficult when you see Mercedes
coming out and they don't even win a single category
against Jaguar nor Tesla.
It's one of those things were you just go,
"Why are you even doing it? You know, you're Mercedes,
"you should be coming out of the gate here swinging,
"having a faster car, a longer range,
"some compelling feature."
The only compelling feature I see here is the that it's a
Mercedes and people want that.
I mean, other than that, I don't know why you would buy
this vehicle as it currently stands.
You can get a better deal from other manufactures.
And still, Audi and BMW are probably working and tinkering
seeing what Mercedes is doing and saying, "Cool.
"We're gonna beat them hands down because we still
"got a couple of years to figure this out."
So, man, I really had high hopes for this.
I'm feeling let down.
I hope maybe they can change things around.
Maybe they'll do a better job.
Maybe they'll come out and say, "Oh, we have the
"EQC Sport, which gets 400 miles on a charge."
Because if you think about it, 2020, that's a long
ways away, and between now and then Tesla is gonna be
producing a car that has over 600 miles of range.
I mean what's gonna happen to the Model S
and the Model X by then?
You know, perhaps we even have a model Y that's coming
out with 400 miles of range.
I mean, these are all things that are clearly
and definitely possible.
And so could you imagine if you could buy a Tesla
with 400+ miles of range and all these other factors
that are just beating the competition for about the same
price as you could buy a Mercedes that is about
half as functional.
It doesn't make sense to me so maybe they can retool.
I hope they do something and I hope these specs were
low-balling and kind of conservative estimates.
So, let me know what you guys think down in the
comments below and yeah, let's stay tuned.
It's gonna be an interesting ride.
Don't forget, when you free the data, your mod will follow.
I'll see you guys back here next time.
(techno music)