Mercedes Cars

Mercedes-Benz is a car, coach, bus and truck manufactuerr based in Germany. Currently, Mercedes-Benz is a division of Daimler AG, its parent company. Mercedes-Benz cars have their origins with Karl Benz, who created the first gasoline-powered car (the Patent Motorwagen) in 1896. Later that year, engineer Wilhelm Maybach and Gottlieb Daimler created the second Mercedes-Benz when they retrofitted a stagecoach with a gasoline engine.

The first Mercedes-Benz cars hit the market in 1901, sold by Daimler Motoren Gesellenschaft. The first branded vehicles were produced and soldin 1926, after Karl Benz's and Daimler's companies merged. Since then, Mercedes-Benz has been responsible for many safety and technological innovations that have found their way into other vehicle makes. Mercedes-Benz is one of the world's oldest automakers, and it is also one of the most famous.

The company was founded by Gottlieb Daimler as part of the Daimler Motoren Gesellenschaft, or DMG, and it was based in Stuttgart, Germany. Mercedes-Benz not only built the first gas-powered car, it built the first gas-powered motorcycle as well, and they also did the first steam-to-gas power conversion in 1886. The first Daimler-Mercedes engine was produced in 1900, and it was a success, paving the way for the 1901 release of the Mercedes 35 hp.

Following the release of the 35 hp, the Mercedes name was given to a variety of models released for public sale; they were all a success with consumers, who were amazed at their performance and speed. Within a year, sales reached record levels, and Mercedes-Benz had established its place in automotive history. Today, the company still has its headquarters in Stuttgart, where its main production plant is also located. However, there are many other manufacturing facilities, scattered across 22 countries, which include Austria, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, and the United States. The first non-German Mercedes-Benz plant was built in Argentina, and it is still being used today. Those plants produce a variety of cars, buses, trucks, vans and even bicycles.

Since it was established, Mercedes-Benz has established a reputation for both durability and quality. Various unbiased surveys, such as those done by JD Power, demonstrated that the company's reputation for quality and durability had a slight decline from the end of the nineties to the beginning of the 2000s. By the middle of 2005, those problems had all but disappeared, and today, Mercedes-Benz cars are some of the most solidly built and reliable in the world.

As of 2008, Mercedes-Benz's initial quality ratings had improved enough to put them in 4th place. On top of that improvement, the company also earned the Platinum Plant Quality Award for its Sindelfingen plant. In 2009, the Consumer Reports picks out of the Mercedes-Benz stable were the C-Class and E-Class. That year, the company was hit with a $30.66 million fine for failing to meet the US' average fuel economy standard. Today, certain Mercedes-Benz cars such as the AMG models and the S550 sold in the US are subject to a "gas guzzler" tax.