AUTONEWS

Three cars, three German giants and a clear mission: not to fail. The future of the German automotive industry could depend on them

German industry has never been so questioned as it is now and there are many new competitors who have managed to do something that seemed unthinkable a few years ago: to take on the giant of the European automotive industry. Part of the problem lies in China, with Mercedes-Benz, BMW and Volkswagen being extremely exposed to this market.

But in Europe the environment is not much better...The pressure of regulations, the energy transition and the strong arrival of Chinese brands are putting pressure on the German giants in a way that has not been seen for a long time...if ever!

That is why Mercedes-Benz, BMW and Volkswagen have no room for failure in their next model offensive, which has a very clear objective: to put their foot down and regain market share and prominence. Let's take a look at the current German situation and look at three key models for the coming years: the Mercedes-Benz CLA, the Volkswagen ID.2 and the first model of BMW's new Neue Klasse, the new iX3.

What's next?...With the ID.2, Volkswagen is going back to its roots and wants this model to be for electric cars what the Golf was for combustion models.

With a base price of around 25 thousand euros, the ID.2 wants to be the new "people's car". And it has plenty of arguments, in addition to the price: it promises up to 450 km of autonomy (WLTP cycle) and plenty of space.

In fact, this is one of the great advantages of the ID.2, which promises to have the exterior dimensions of a Polo, but the interior space of a Golf. The ID.2all prototype that previews the production ID.2 announced 490 litres for the boot, 110 litres more than the Golf.

As for BMW, the mission seems to be to revolutionize the way it makes electric cars. And it wants to do so with a new family of models that it has called Neue Klasse, a designation it had already used in the 1960s — and which ended up determining what BMW would be in the following decades. The importance of Neue Klasse for the future of BMW could not be more relevant, therefore.

The first Neue Klasse to be launched, this year, will be the iX3 SUV. It has a new platform specifically for electric vehicles (800 V), new cylindrical cells for the batteries and new electric motors.

The promise is that it will be much more efficient, which will also translate into greater autonomy than its current electric vehicles. Moving on to Mercedes-Benz, the Stuttgart brand recently revealed one of the most important models of the decade: the new CLA, which we already got to see first-hand in Rome, Italy. 

In addition to unveiling the next chapter in Mercedes-Benz's visual language, the new CLA is the first of four new models to use the new MMA (Mercedes-Benz Modular Architecture) platform, which supports multi-energy powertrains and will serve the brand's new entry-level range. The new CLA promises benchmark efficiency levels, whether as a 100% electric vehicle — 12 kWh/100 km and up to 792 km of autonomy — or as a mild-hybrid, with its petrol engine promising similar consumption to that of a diesel engine.

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