The new models - E 200 and E 350d - have been priced at Rs 56.15 lakh and Rs 69.47 lakh, respectively
Sometime in 2013, when luxury car maker Mercedes-Benz was trying to study consumer behaviour in India for the upgrading the iconic E-Class model, it realised that most owners of E-Class, just like their Chinese counterparts, prefer chauffeur-driven cars.
Fast forward to February 2017, the company on Tuesday launched a new long wheelbase (LWB) car meant for the Indian market with right-hand drive (RHD) feature. As a result, the company focused on rear seats by offering an extra 134 mm of legroom, apart from a host of other features.
The new models - E 200 and E 350d - have been priced at Rs 56.15 lakh and Rs 69.47 lakh, respectively. According to the automaker, India is the first country to get an RHD version of the LWB E-Class in the world.
"Since a majority of our E-Class customers in India are chauffeur-driven, it was a natural decision for us to introduce the long wheelbase car in India," said Roland Folger, MD & CEO, Mercedes-Benz India.
According to the internal survey done by the company by interacting with the customers, dealers, service centres, it was found that roughly 70%-80% customers prefer chauffeur-driven cars to go for meetings, and to offices. But during the weekend, just around 10%-20% want to use the chauffeur service as people want to enjoy the driving experience.
At least a third of Mercedes-Benz's sales comes from this model. Last calendar year, the company reported a sale of 13,231 units.
According to the Mercedes-Benz management team, the company is stressing more on 'Make-in-India' products with the ongoing transfer of knowledge between its headquarters at Sindelfingen in Germany and the production hub in Pune.
Folger added that localisation is a continuous process, and till recently, it was around 60%. "...Though it makes no sense to go further into localisation as the company does not get the tax benefit beyond that. But then, keeping future benefit in mind, we are trying to go still further with localisation so as to get a larger number of local suppliers. This will also help us in bringing down the cost of production further," he said.
Meanwhile, according to a media report, BMW, which has been battling the heat from Mercedes and Audi, will take the covers off the 5 Series after a few weeks. The 5 Series is a direct rival of the E-Class but sells in smaller numbers compared to Mercedes's best-seller. The 5 Series and E-Class will face competition from the Audi A6 and the Jaguar XF.
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