“Manufacturers will not see a return within a reasonable time on the billions they’re investing now” in electric cars, Zetsche is quoted as saying. The statement came during an event in Spain to introduce the Mercedes-Benz B-Class Electric Drive to European journalists, and was published Monday in a Bloomberg article on that car. Moreover, according to Zetsche, “You can reasonably say that nobody today is making a battery-powered vehicle that’s economically viable in its own right.”