Mercedes Unveils The First All-Electric Luxury Van

So 40 years of 300E/E350, G-class since the 1970s, 300SE/S500 since like 1970, SL since 1954.  Yes they changed from number first to letter first, but it is the same alpha-numeric theme.   The treading water luxury brands like Lincoln, Acura, Infiniti and Cadillac change naming around all the time and don't have the brand equity, and the really struggling brands like Jaguar, Maserati, Alfa Romeo just aren't consistent enough at anything.   I think Cadillac could go all EV and really rebuild the lineup and be on to something, but they then need 10-20 years of consistently good product. The 2045 Cadillac lineup should be, Optiq, Lyriq, Vistiq, Escalade, Celestiq and whatever they name their EV sedan that I imagine will replace CT4/CT5.  

Even though some degradation is expected, with ranges as high as they are getting these days, it's not really going to affect your day-to-day life if you're charging at home each night. A newer EV with a 320 mile range from the factory will still get 265 miles of range if the battery degrades to 80% after 12 years.  That's still a longer range than some base model Tesla Model-3s

This is awesome news showing that the R&D into EVs is far stronger and better than ICE supporters have stated. 12yrs for a battery pack is on par with the life of an ICE engine.  That stated, it would imply to me that like any auto, ice or EV, if taken care of they will last a much longer time than many expect.

A commonly held perception about lithium-ion batteries used in electric vehicles and hybrids may not be true according to a Stanford University study that shows the batteries lasting longer than earlier lab tests had shown. In a paper published on December 9th, researchers from the SLAC-Stanford Battery Center and the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory monitored differences in battery health when the batteries were subjected to two types of battery charge and discharge cycled.  The most commonly used method of lab testing batteries involves charging and discharging the batteries using a constant current. Another more involved test, called Dynamic Cycling, mimics real-world activity more closely with surges in use followed by rest and regeneration cycles.  The researchers found that the batteries subjected to the dynamic cycle test fared better in in health metrics such as the degradation of electrodes and lithium. The team tested four charge-discharge patterns to 92 sample batteries over two years and found that the closer to real world use the pattern was, the better the health results of the battery at the end of the test with up to a 40 percent improvement over the standard test. The results were unexpected because the researchers thought rapid changes in charge-discharge in the dynamic cycling test would cause faster degradation of the battery components.  Fear of expensive battery replacement costs had impacted the adoption of electric vehicles despite the likelihood that they will last 12 years or more. View full article

Make me question holding onto old auto's when you see how poorly they are made from a Safety standpoint.