Tesla may be the benchmark for electric cars at the moment but Mercedes-Benz has a plan to knock off its upstart American rival.

The German company has revealed new details of its long-awaited electric vehicle range, with the first model set to appear in concept form at September's Paris motor show.

The Paris concept will spawn a production model by 2018 and three more fully electric Mercedes will arrive by 2020, with an even greater range due in the next decade.

Speaking at a specially organised TecDay forum in Stuttgart this week, Mercedes-Benz director of product planning, Wilko Stark, gave new details of the company's electric vehicle plans.

Mercedes IAA concept gave a hint at its future technology and style. Photo: Supplied

An entirely new electric vehicle architecture (EVA) has been developed and includes both scalable battery packs and electric motors, in a similar 'skateboard' style layout to Tesla's Model S and Model X.

The new EVA has been developed around Mercedes existing Modular Rear-wheel drive Architecture (MRA) that underpins the C-Class, GLC-Class and new E-Class.

That gives Mercedes flexibility to create a new range of electric vehicles that will be an addition to the range, and not variants of existing models, and take the fight to Tesla's growing line-up which is due to add the smaller Model 3 by 2018.

Mercedes-Benz will launch a range of new electric vehicles using this newly developed platform. Photo: Supplied

While Stark played down the notion of targeting Tesla, he said the goal for the new EVA was to be the best electric car in the world.

"For us it is important that we come up with a new electric vehicle platform, a new car, but it's a Mercedes," Stark said. "And a Mercedes means that it has to be the best car, simple as that. Even better than the Tesla, for sure, and that applies to range."

Although parent company Daimler was once a major shareholder in Tesla, Mercedes has opted to go it alone with the development of the EVA, even though the German and American companies worked together on the current Mercedes-Benz B-Class EV.

"What I think is very important is that we build up all the competences for our own," Stark explained. "This is the future, this is key technology, so we cannot rely on any suppliers or even competitors. Therefore we do our own platform, we build up all the technologies we already have and we design a completely dedicated electric vehicle platform."

While Stark admitted Tesla has stolen the limelight in regard to electric cars from the traditional car makers, he is confident the establishment will hit back hard in the coming years. Mercedes' arch-rivals BMW has already launched its own electric sub-brand 'i' and Audi has known to be working on its own fully electric e-tron SUV. Even Porsche has confirmed it will build a production version of its Mission E concept.

"Definitely, for the time being, yes [Tesla has stolen the attention]," Stark said. "But regarding the legislation and what we have in the US and Europe and China all OEMs have to go into electric cars to meet the CO2 regulations. It's imperative. It's a must. Therefore we are also pushing this technology with a dedicated platform. Therefore in the end Tesla will be an electric car manufacturer along with all the other competitors. For the time being Tesla as a [unique selling point] but in a few years all the competitors will have electric cars, so Tesla will have 10 or 15 other competitors, simple as that."

Mercedes IAA concept gave a hint at its future technology and style. Photo: Supplied

Stark also dismissed Tesla's decision to create its own infrastructure of public recharging stations, its so-called Supercharger Network, saying it was wrong for individual car companies to try and solve what is an industry wide issue.

"We strongly believe we have to team up with other OEMs because otherwise it doesn't make sense for everybody to build up dedicated systems," Stark said. "You have to have fuel stations like today that are for everybody. It is much, much easier than if everyone built up their own."

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Mercedes IAA concept gave a hint at its future technology and style. Photo: Supplied