The country’s first luxury car, the E-Class Mercedes-Benz, which was launched in India 20 years ago still remains to be the largest selling luxury sedan in India.
Mercedes-Benz celebrated 20 years of making the E-Class in India and an unhindered run in the Indian market with the launch of a Edition E, a refreshed version of the car E-Class priced between R48.60 lakh and R60.61 lakh (ex-showroom Pune) on Wednesday.
A new generation E-Class will be launched next year, Roland Folger, MD and CEO, Mercedes-Benz India said. “The Mercedes Make in India journey started 20 years ago with the E-Class and today the Indian plant is the only plant worldwide to make sedans, SUVs and the super luxury Maybach brands,” he said.
With an investment of over R1,000 crore the Chakan plant has the largest installed production capacity for any luxury car marker in India. The company broke even in the year 2000 and at present is among a few profitable luxury car makers in India.
The luxury car market witnessed a growth in the last five years but it is still at 1.3% of the total market, Folger said.
“This was perceived as a rich man’s car and was not looked at as a business which added to the GDP and created jobs or brought in technology,” he said.
The Mercedes E class started local manufacturing in 1995 with around 6% to 8% localisation and today this has reached to 60%. The company has sold 32,000 units of the E-Class since its launch . The company followed the 1995 launch with a newer versions in 1997, 2002, 2009 and 2013 with the latest E-Class set for launch next year, Folger said.
Mercedes-Benz India has also grown the locally produced portfolio from the E-Class and added the Maybach S 500, S-Class, C-Class, CLA sedan and the GLA, GLE and GL-Class SUVs.
In 2015 Mercedes-Benz regained its top spot in the market with sales of 13,502 units and witnessed a growth of 32%. This year the company hopes to maintain the growth but is concerned about the regulatory challenges. Folger said the company is ready to bring in BS Stage VI standards into the country as early as 2018.
Folger said this was the only way to deal with the emission problem as the odd-even policy or the under-two litre engine or even moving to petrol were only short term solutions and would not provide any relief.
