2023 Mercedes-benz Eqb Eqb 250+ on 2040-cars

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Recharge Wrap-up: Mercedes stationary batteries, 2015 E-Mazing Race

Mercedes-Benz is following Tesla's Powerwall in selling stationary batteries for home, business, and industrial solar energy storage. The lithium-ion batteries will come in 2.5- and 5.9-kWh capacities, and can be linked together. Daimler's vehicle battery technology, "has proven to work for millions of driven kilometers in the toughest environments of heat and cold, which makes it the best candidate also for stationary use," says Harald Kroeger of Mercedes-Benz. Pricing is unavailable as of yet, but Mercedes promises "competitive" pricing when the batteries go on sale at the Intersolar trade fair (June 10 through 12) in Munich, Germany. Read more at Automotive News, or in the press release below. The third running of the E-Mazing Race competition for electric vehicles is underway in Canada. The race challenges drivers to earn the most points by charging at Sun Country Highway charging stations in a month. Contestants needn't have been at the official starting point nor cross the finish line; they just needed to sign up and download the race app to participate. More remote charging stations offer more points when charging, and participants can also win prizes for photos and using social media. The 2015 E-Mazing Race, which began May 27 and ends June 24, is meant to raise awareness of electric vehicles. Sun Country is working on expanding its EV charging infrastructure in the US, so don't be surprised to see the race encompassing most of North America in the future. Read more at Green Car Reports. Linde has opened a new hydrogen fueling station in Innsbruck, Austria. The station, located in the popular destination city that has twice hosted the Winter Olympics, will allow hydrogen-powered vehicles to cross the Alps and travel between Italy and Germany. The station is capable of 700-bar refueling and can fuel six cars per hour. It was built as part of the HyFive project to create hydrogen fueling infrastructure across Europe to facilitate the rollout of fuel cell vehicles. It is the second public hydrogen station in Austria. Read more at Green Car Congress, or in the press release below from Linde.

Poor headlights cause 40 cars to miss IIHS Top Safety Pick rating

Over the past few months, we've noticed a number of cars and SUVs that have come incredibly close to earning one of the IIHS's highest accolades, the Top Safety Pick rating. They have great crash test scores and solid automatic emergency braking and forward collision warning systems. What trips them up is headlights. That got us wondering, how many vehicles are there that are coming up short because they don't have headlights that meet the organization's criteria for an "Acceptable" or "Good" rating. This is a revision made after 2017, a year in which headlights weren't factored in for this specific award. This is also why why some vehicles, such as the Ford F-150, might have had the award last year, but have lost it for this year. We reached out to someone at IIHS to find out. He responded with the following car models. Depending on how you count, a whopping 40 models crash well enough to receive the rating, but don't get it because their headlights are either "Poor" or "Marginal." We say depending on how you count because the IIHS actual counts truck body styles differently, and the Infiniti Q70 is a special case. Apparently the version of the Q70 that has good headlights doesn't have adequate forward collision prevention technology. And the one that has good forward collision tech doesn't have good enough headlights. We've provided the entire list of vehicles below in alphabetical order. Interestingly, it seems the Volkswagen Group is having the most difficulty providing good headlights with its otherwise safe cars. It had the most models on the list at 9 split between Audi and Volkswagen. GM is next in line with 7 models. It is worth noting again that though these vehicles have subpar headlights and don't quite earn Top Safety Pick awards, that doesn't mean they're unsafe. They all score well enough in crash testing and forward collision prevention that they would get the coveted award if the lights were better.

Mercedes mulling Renault-based entry-level X-Class?

Somewhere in between the Smart brand and the all-new A-Class (pictured above), Daimler is said to be readying a smaller entry-level product for the Mercedes-Benz brand to compete with models like the Audi A1. According to AutoBild, Mercedes-Benz will get a new hatchback based on a platform from its recent partnership with Renault-Nissan, and it could be called the X-Class.
Expected to debut by 2018, the Mercedes-Benz X-Class could be offered in sedan, hatchback and crossover variants, and it would likely have a starting price below the $20,000-euro mark. Power would come from either a 1.0-liter inline three-cylinder engine or a 1.5-liter inline-four, and the car would likely be built in a low-cost nation in order to make the financials work. Wearing the Mercedes-Benz name, the X-Class would have to exhibit more distinguishable luxury and styling to set itself apart from the models that helped provide its underpinnings.