And over here in the Appliance Department you'll now find the Mercedes-Benz B-Class Electric Drive, the firm's first proper, volume-production electric car: Five-seats, five doors, front-wheel drive, 85 miles of range, 42 grand or so before tax credits at the state and federal level. In all respects, just another ship in Mercedes' fleet.
现在，你将会在家电部找到梅赛德斯-奔驰(Mercedes-Benz) B级Electric Drive――该公司第一款真正意义上的、投入量产的电动车型。该款车为五门五座设计，前轮驱动，续航里程为85英里（约合135公里），在享受联邦及州政府税收优惠前的售价为42,000美元。从各个方面来看，它都是奔驰系列车型的一名新成员。
First impression: The B-ED reeks of the same high-class domesticity as Mercedes' R-Class and M-Class breeders. Similar seats, same spill-resistant textures, mostly the same instruments and switchgear, including the knobby dealy in the center console to dial in navi, audio and vehicle systems. Love it or hate it, there, too, is Mercedes' 7-inch color display floating above ball vents in the dash center, looking like an abandoned iPad.
先说说第一印象：B级Electric Drive具有与其前辈奔驰R级与M级车型相同的高档家用性能。它们选用了类似的座椅和同样的防泼溅面料，仪表和开关装置也大致相同，其中包括中控台上那个用来调节导航、音响和车载系统的圆鼓鼓的按钮。不管你喜欢还是讨厌，这款车仪表台上圆形通风口的上方也有一块七英寸的悬浮式彩色显示屏，它看上去就像一部报废的iPad。
In any event, the B-ED is not weird. Actually, it couldn't be more familiar and obvious. The accelerator pedal might as well have 'Schnell' written on it.
不管怎样，B级Electric Drive都不算怪异。实际上，它给人的印象是再熟悉和明显不过的。它的油门踏板上倒不如写上“Schnell”（译注：该词为快速地之意）。
Got kids? Got a garage? Commute to the train station? Don't want to have to park a big German blimp every time you go out? Believe me, if your first Mercedes had a plug, you wouldn't be missing a thing.
家有孩子？有车库？需经常往返于火车站？不想每次都驾驶一辆庞大的德系车外出？相信我，如果你的第一辆奔驰是款电动汽车，你不会错过什么的。
Redesigned in 2011, the B-Class (tall family wagon) has been unavailable in the U.S. (but yes for Mexico and Canada). As part of the platform redesign, different versions of the vehicle floor stampings were created to accommodate batteries or compressed natural-gas storage. The B will be available in the States only as an EV. That fact, it's fair to say, won't supercharge model sales.
奔驰B级车型（高车座家用旅行车）在2011年经过了重新设计，一直未在美国市场出售（但在墨西哥和加拿大有售）。作为平台重新设计的变动之一，不同版本的底盘冲压件被设计出来以容纳电池或压缩天然气储存容器。B级车型在美国将只出售电动版。公平地说，这一点将无法刺激车型的销量。
Mercedes execs are realistic. When I asked project manager Anton Sonntag how many he thought the company could sell, he shrugged and said: 'As many as people will buy.'
奔驰的管理者讲究实际。笔者向该公司项目经理安东・松塔格(Anton Sonntag)询问他认为这款车能卖出多少时，他耸了耸肩，答道：“大家想买多少就能卖多少。”
The B-ED is, realists would note, a 'compliance car.' The phrase refers to a low- or zero-emission vehicle model, built in whatever numbers necessary to satisfy some portion of California's clean-vehicle quota and typically sold only in California and 10 other clean-air states. The California Air Resources Board obliges major manufacturers to sell an incrementally rising percentage of advanced technology ZEV cars even if, and most assuredly when, they lose money on them.
注重实际的人可能会说，B级Electric Drive是一款“合规车”。这个词指的是低排放或零排放车型，制造商要生产必要数量的车辆以达到自己在加州洁 能源车辆配额中的份额。这些车通常只在加州和另外10个制订了洁 空气法规的州出售。加州空气资源委员会(The California Air Resources Board)强制主要汽车制造商销售越来越高比例的先进技术零排放车型，即使（而且几乎肯定就会如此）他们要做亏本买卖。
Compliance cars put something of a strain on auto makers' communications departments, because the unspoken truth is so, um, unspeakable. So let's divide the B-ED's media debut last week in Silicon Valley into text and subtext. The subtext was regulatory compliance, and of a very expedient variety, too: Rather than rely on in-house R&D, Mercedes essentially contracted with Tesla -- the Silicon Valley car maker and acknowledged leader in electric automobiles -- to provide the EV architecture (motor, transmission, battery, power electronics) for its electron-fired B-Class.
合规车给汽车制造商的公关部门带来了一些压力，因为不言而喻的事实是…不可言说。如果把B级Electric Drive前不久在硅谷的媒体首秀分为字面意义与言外之意的话，那么它的言外之意就是遵从法规，而且是权且遵从。奔驰并未动用自身的研发力量，而是基本上将研发外包给硅谷汽车制造商、公认的电动汽车领导者特斯拉，由后者为其B级电动车提供电动汽车的架构（发动机、传动系统、电池及电力电子设备）。
The B-Class ED is the product of a technology-sharing alliance between Tesla and Daimler that goes back to Mercedes' 2009 investment. Tesla will make the B-Class battery pack, power management system and thrashy bits at the factory in Fremont, Calif., and ship them to Germany for final vehicle assembly.
B级Electric Drive是特斯拉与戴姆勒(Daimler)之间技术共享联盟的产物，二者之间的合作还要追溯至2009年奔驰对特斯拉的投资。特斯拉将在加州弗里蒙特(Fremont)的工厂生产电池组、电源管理系统及电动机，最后把它们运到德国进行组装。
Typically with advanced technology/compliance car projects -- oh, the Honda Fit EV, for example -- the manufacturer will convert an existing vehicle into an EV or plug-in EV, as cost effectively as possible. Then it will make, lease and sell as many units as it takes, at whatever price, to hit the company's compliance targets. Then, God willing, it will shut up about it, because each unit sold loses money. When these cars come up in conversation, auto executives start looking at their shoes.
通常来说，对于先进技术/合规汽车项目――比如说本田(Honda)的飞度电动车――制造商会以尽可能低的成本将现有车型改为纯电动汽车或插电式电动汽车。为实现公司的合规目标，它们会生产、租赁和销售所需数量的车辆，也不管价格是多少。如果情况允许，它们会闭口不提那些车型，因为卖出的每一辆车都是亏本生意。当那些车型出现在谈话中时，汽车公司的管理者就会开始低头不语。
But, from my tour of California's electric-car culture two weeks ago, I can tell you that is changing. As a class, these vehicles have fully outgrown whatever technical adolescence made them awkward in the first decade of this century. I've driven a gas-powered B-Class in Europe, and the Tesla-powered version is massively better.
不过，从我前不久对加州电动汽车文化的亲身体验来看，我能告诉你这种情况正发生改变。作为一种汽车类型，电动汽车已经获得充分发展，不再像在本世纪头10年那样显得技术生涩了。我曾在欧洲开过奔驰B级天然气动力车，相比之下特斯拉电动版的车型要好得多。
One of these days, one of these compliance cars is going to break out, sales-wise. The B-Class ED, which will sell in all 50 states, could be the one. While it might have emerged out of a crass effort at compliance, the B-ED just shines, a completely on-point premium family electric that braids Tesla's and Mercedes' DNA so convincingly the car might as well be called the Model B.
总有一天，会有一款合规车迎来销量的爆发。将在美国所有50个州销售的B级Electric Drive就可能是这么一款车。尽管它也许是应对监管的权宜之举带来的产物，但它依然表现出众，是一款不折不扣的高档家用电动车。它令人信服地将特斯拉与梅赛德斯的DNA融于一身，倒不如就把它叫做Model B吧。
The drive parts are Tesla's devising, including a 28 kwh lithium battery pack and power-management system. An electric motor rated at 132 kW, or 177 horsepower, and 251 pound-feet of torque, drive the front wheels through a single-ratio transmission. That is enough twist to pull the 3,924-pound vehicle to 60 mph in less than 8 seconds, while top speed is limited to 100 mph. Among its curiosities is the car's four levels of regenerative braking, accessed through the steering wheel-mounted paddles. On the most aggressive setting, the car slows crisply when you lift your foot off the accelerator, but it doesn't have the one-pedal operation of its rival, BMW i3.
它的动力系统出自特斯拉的设计，包括容量为28千瓦时的电池组和电池管理系统。它搭载132千瓦（177匹马力）功率的电动机，扭矩为339牛米，无级变速前轮驱动。这一扭矩足以使这辆重3,924磅（约合1,780千克）的汽车在不到八秒的时间内加速到百公里，同时它的最高速度被限定在100英里/小时（约合160公里/小时）。在这款车的令人奇怪之处中，有一点是它通过方向盘上的拨片实现的四档再生制动系统。在最极端的情况下，把脚从油门上一放下，车子就会迅速减速，但是它不具备竞争对手宝马(BMW) i3的单踏板控制功能。
The B-ED doesn't have supercharging capacity. With a 220V/40A Level 2 charger, it takes 3.5 hours to fully charge a depleted battery, says Mercedes, and 2 hours to raise levels to 60%.
B级Electric Drive不具备迅速充电能力。梅赛德斯称，使用220伏/40安的二级充电桩充电的话，充满电量耗尽的电池需要三个半小时，充到60%的电量需要两小时。
Throughout my 50-mile test drive in the Bay area, the B-ED had great spirit under the spur. And due to its low center of gravity -- the dense battery pack buried in the floor -- the B-ED rides well and corners with a lot more confidence than its gas-powered twin, even though the electric weighs 700 pounds more.
笔者在湾区试驾了50英里（约合80公里），B级Electric Drive在加速情况下动力十足。由于它重心低――密集的电池组隐藏在底盘内――它行驶顺畅，转弯时也比天然气动力的同款车型更从容，尽管它还要更重700磅（约合315公斤）。
Speaking of weight: The steel-bodied B-ED competes directly with BMW's new and radical, carbon-fiber and plastic-bodied BMW i3. Both are next-generation electric family cars priced in the low $40,000s, and both have roughly the same range, power and comparable performance. And yet the two cars are wildly different, reflecting the industrial strategies behind them. The BMW's advanced-materials approach to weight saving netted them a car weighing a mere 2,860 pounds, fully 1,064 pounds lighter than the B-ED.
说到车重：采用钢材料车体的B级Electric Drive与采用塑料材质车体的宝马i3是直接竞争者。二者都是定价在40,000美元出头的新一代家用电动汽车，续航里程、动力大致相同，性能也不相上下。然而，这两款车又相差甚远，反映了各自背后不同的行业策略。宝马i3采用了尖端材料，该款车的重量只有2,860磅（约合1,300 公斤），比B级Electric Drive轻了1,064磅（约合480公斤）。
The Mercedes' approach is more conservative, fiscally and technically. And we'll have to wait to see the comparative results. These are amazing, uncertain times in appliance sales.
梅赛德斯的策略则更为保守，从财政与技术上来看都是如此。我们还得等待一段时日才能看到它们的比较结果。这将是家电销售中令人惊叹而又不可捉摸的一段时光。