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"china is not only the world's largest automobile market, but also the most dynamic market. especially in terms of innovation speed, new energy vehicles and intelligent transformation, china can be said to be the fastest market in the world entering a new era of the automobile industry." recently, ola källenius, chairman of the board of management of mercedes-benz group ag, said in an interview with a reporter from the "daily economic news" that under the above background, deep participation in the development of the chinese market is a natural choice for mercedes-benz (hereinafter referred to as mercedes-benz).

not long ago, mercedes-benz further deepened its layout in china. it plans to invest more than 14 billion yuan in china with its chinese partners, including more than 10 billion yuan in passenger car business and more than 4 billion yuan in light commercial vehicle business, to enrich its localized product lineup of passenger cars and light commercial vehicles. according to the plan, starting from 2025, mercedes-benz will successively put into production the new pure electric long-wheelbase cla model, the new long-wheelbase gle suv model exclusive to china, and the new luxury pure electric mpv model built on the van.ea platform.

it is understood that the above-mentioned new localized models will be put into production by beijing benz and fujian benz respectively. mercedes-benz said that through the above-mentioned investment in china, mercedes-benz will further participate in the development of high-end manufacturing, new energy vehicles, intelligent networked vehicles and related industrial chains in beijing, fuzhou and surrounding areas, aiming to inject new impetus into the development of local industrial clusters.

"over the past 20 years, mercedes-benz has achieved tremendous success in china together with local partners, not only in sales and production, but also in r&d, supply chain partners, and technological cooperation." ola kallenius said that as mercedes-benz's development in china enters a new stage, it is a natural choice to continue investing in china at this time. china is also one of the main pillars of mercedes-benz's global strategy.

expanding investment demonstrates confidence in china

as a landmark enterprise in the cooperation between china and germany, mercedes-benz has continuously deepened localized cooperation in recent years and accelerated the increase in the proportion of chinese r&d teams in the global system.

official data show that mercedes-benz and its partners have invested more than 100 billion yuan in china from 2014 to 2023. in the past five years, mercedes-benz's r&d investment in china has reached 10.5 billion yuan, and the r&d team has increased to 2,000 people, mainly investing in cutting-edge r&d fields such as electrification and intelligence.

"a few years ago, we decided to take r&d in china to a new level. we started r&d in china in 2005 and saw that china has abundant resources of outstanding talents and abundant technology companies, which is a very good hotbed of innovation. for mercedes-benz, this gives us the opportunity to develop a talent and innovation ecosystem here." ola kallenius said that today r&d in china has become the most comprehensive r&d network of mercedes-benz outside of germany. r&d in china works closely with germany and is an important part of mercedes-benz's global r&d team.

it is worth mentioning that the function of mercedes-benz's r&d team in china is no longer "r&d serving local production" as in the past. it has played a leading role in some international r&d projects, including new battery packs for plug-in hybrid models, new rear-seat entertainment systems, and smart connectivity and autonomous driving functions for new models equipped with the mb.os operating system.

the results of localization have already emerged, such as the latest mercedes-benz models equipped with qualcomm 8295 smart cockpit chips and 5g communication technology. in addition, mercedes-benz has also launched features that are more in line with localization needs, such as co-pilot screens, smart voice assistants, l2+ navigation assisted driving systems, and in-car games. currently, mercedes-benz is not only one of the first companies to be awarded a conditional autonomous driving (l3) road test license in beijing, but in august it also became the first international automobile brand to be approved to conduct l4 city and expressway tests in beijing.

"these intelligent functions will also be deployed in more main models. starting next year, our independently developed new mb.os architecture will also be launched with the new mma platform models. systems like the 'mapless' l2++ end-to-end full-scenario advanced intelligent driving system will be launched on the market one after another." tang shikai, member of the board of directors of mercedes-benz group ag and responsible for greater china business, said that r&d investment is one of the important factors driving the growth of mercedes-benz's business in china, and the continuous increase in investment in china in areas such as r&d also demonstrates mercedes-benz's confidence in the chinese market.

supporting the green transformation of the automotive industry

at present, uncertainty in the global economy is increasing, but mercedes-benz firmly holds a positive attitude towards the long-term development of the chinese market and economic and trade cooperation between china and europe and china and germany.

according to xinhua news agency, the latest statistics from the german central bank show that in the first half of 2024, germany's investment in china hit a record high of 7.3 billion euros. the report quoted the german newspaper die welt as saying that most of germany's investment in china is the reinvestment of profits made by german companies in the chinese market, and 6.6 billion euros of the 7.3 billion euros investment comes from profits from chinese business. this not only shows that german companies have made very considerable profits from the chinese market, but also reflects that german companies continue to be optimistic about the prospects of the chinese market.

"the chinese market is the world's largest and most dynamic market in both the automotive and chemical industries, so there is no doubt that china plays a key role in mercedes-benz's global layout." brudermüller, chairman of the supervisory board of mercedes-benz group ag, said that china and europe, as well as china and germany, have a long-standing tradition of good cooperation, and cooperation is very beneficial to both sides. brudermüller said, "the world needs china, and china needs the world."

from the market perspective, troska believes that in the past 6-7 years, the chinese luxury car market has maintained growth, and mercedes-benz is one of the main players, which is why it attaches so much importance to the chinese market. "we believe that the long-term development of the chinese economy will continue to benefit the luxury car market. at the same time, in the process of electric vehicle transformation, our customers are also faced with more choices," troska said.

in fact, in addition to increasing investment in electrified products, mercedes-benz is also supporting the green transformation of china's auto industry through a full range of carbon neutrality measures covering production, supply chain, and channels. for example, beijing benz, as one of the first companies in beijing to purchase green electricity, has purchased green electricity for four consecutive years; fujian benz expects that by the third quarter of 2024, the solar photovoltaic coverage area will exceed 130,000 square meters, and the annual power generation is expected to reach 15,800 megawatt-hours. in addition, mercedes-benz is also one of the first companies to purchase low-carbon steel.

"our development strategy is highly consistent with china's current development strategy. promoting green transformation and sustainable development does not mean that the task is accomplished once we have electric vehicle products. this definition is too narrow. we focus on the entire value chain. our ultimate goal is to achieve net carbon neutrality for the entire value chain by 2039," said kang linsong.

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