German luxury carmaker Mercedes-Benz on Thursday said it will start selling its all-electric SUV EQC across all dealerships in India under the phase II expansion strategy.

Mercedes-Benz India had launched the EQC in 2020 and was until now available in six select cities across 14 locations. The company said it has also re-opened bookings from Thursday for the next batch of EQCs, having sold out the first batch after the vehicle was launched in October 2020 at a starting price of ₹99.3 lakh.

“Mercedes-Benz (India) dealers across the 50 cities and 94 locations, will be equipped with EQC trained manpower and equipment to offer a hassle free ownership experience for the EQC owners,” the company said in a statement.

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Mercedes-Benz India Managing Director and CEO Martin Schwenk said, “Pioneering the luxury EV market in India with the EQC was an important decision for us and a step taken in the right direction. With the growing customer demand for the EQC, we are now expanding our EV penetration to 50 Indian cities, covering our entire retail network spread.”

This will enable more customers across Indian cities to own the EQC and join the transition to luxury e-mobility, he added.

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“Commencement of Phase II expansion for the EQC is in line with our broader vision of creating a long-term, worry-free, sustainable e-mobility ecosystem for our customers in India,” Schwenk said.

Mercedes-Benz globally is pursuing an aggressive EV strategy of ‘EV first to EV only’, and in India the high acceptance level of the EQC makes the company confident that, electric is the future, he added.

The company said the new EQC will have an upgraded 11 kW on-board charger. The new on-board charger will charge the 80 kWh battery in 7 hours 30 minutes from 10 per cent to 100 per cent state of charge, instead of the 11 hours taken earlier.

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