Roland Folger

MD and CEO, Mercedes-Benz India about the new LWB E-Class and how the Mercedes portfolio is shaping up.

- Sirish Chandran

THE E-CLASS AMOUNTS TO over 30 per cent of our overall sales making it one of our most important cars. Also from the profitability point of view, it’s certainly a vehicle that makes a major impact. After selling five generations of the car in India, it’s also one of the cars that has founded the reputation for Mercedes-Benz in India to the largest possible extent. So we use the E-Class to basically reshape the way you see the brand. With the new E-Class, we’ve found the perfect vehicle to do that.

On the decision to bring the LWB E-Class: 

With the previous generation car, we couldn’t change the car in India to the one that was available in China. But with the new car, we’ve done some research with customers to make sure that our gut feeling is mirrored by what customers really want. And we’ve seen that there are a significant amount of customers, especially of the E-Class, that are being chauffeur driven. For our clientele, time is money, and time that can be spent constructively working in your car in comfort is naturally going to be one of the changing factors for their own personal businesses.

On the extra costs incurred to get the LWB over the regular E-Class: