The Mercedes G-Wagon is going electric. We had the first test drive
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We may have Arnold Schwarzenegger to thank for the electric Mercedes-Benz G-Class, colloquially known as the G-Wagon.In 2018, on stage in front of hundreds of reporters at the debut of the V8 G-Class in Detroit, Schwarzenegger pressed Dieter Zetsche, then head of Mercedes-Benz, to make a battery version of the SUV being manufactured in Graz, Austria, near Schwarzenegger's hometown. Wearing a black cowboy hat and his signature walrus mustache, Zetsche agreed—although the brass at Mercedes had not thoroughly discussed it. “I was actually looking at one of my guys and said, ‘Do we have a product plan for this?'” Ola Källenius, current chief executive officer of Mercedes, tells me with a laugh on Oct. 9. He and I are in Austria, preparing to test drive the new electric G-Wagon on...
