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Green targets won't lower Mercedes' prestige values

Date: 02 April 2008   |   Author: Tristan Young

Mercedes' worldwide boss has told BusinessCar that the brand remains committed to prestige cars and will not cut brand values to hit Government-imposed emissions targets.

Speaking to BusinessCar at the Geneva motor show Dieter Zetsche said: "We're not going to turn into a Peugeot or Fiat to meet targets. We're Mercedes and we sell prestige, comfortable cars."

Commenting on the launch of the C-class Blue Efficiency, Mercedes' rival to VW's Bluemotion cars, Zetsche hinted that the cost of introducing green tech was the reason the firm had opted to go down the individual green model route like VW, rather than cutting CO2 on all products such as BMW has done with its Efficient Dynamics package of measures.

"We can't make changes on all our models at once. We will have very reasonable pricing for this and not every customer wants these changes."

When asked if his strategy relied on people buying the low CO2 models to hit EU emissions targets Zetsche added: "We think we can influence the customers, and have expectations of sales based on research."

He also revealed that Mercedes remained committed to fuel cell cars in the future.

"By 2014-15 we will offer a technically competitive fuel cell car produced at 100,000 a year.

"Fuel cells are better than battery cars because they're capable of 400km range versus batteries at 100km, and the speed of recharge is two minutes rather than six hours.

"The volume of the fuel cell car means it would be a standalone product with a different body in the C- or D- [family car] segment."



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