An illuminated logo of Mercedes is seen on the Mercedes-Benz F105 at an exhibition before the Daimler annual shareholder meeting in Berlin, Germany
Mercedes-Benz is set to unveil its much-anticipated electric SUV on Tuesday, marking the start of a German onslaught against Tesla's dominance of the fast-growing market for premium battery cars.
Daimler-owned Mercedes, BMW and Volkswagen's Audi and Porsche divisions are all gunning for the $52 billion Californian upstart, with early publicity efforts emulating its tech-industry halo.
The market for upscale electric cars is Tesla's to lose, with sales of its entry-level Model 3 sedan expected to reach about 50,000 cars this year and almost double that in 2019.
The Mercedes EQC - whose launch programme in Stockholm features yoga in a direct appeal to the Millennials who have flocked to Tesla - is the first production model under the carmaker's electric EQ sub-brand. It will be closely followed by similarly hyped debuts for BMW and Audi.
"While Tesla currently has a strong hold on the luxury electric market, I don't think this will be the case after the arrival of the German premium offerings," said Wajih Hossenally, an automotive powertrain analyst with IHS Markit.
"Tesla has virtually zero competition - but this will change from 2019 onwards."
Rival forecaster LMC Automotive agrees, predicting a steady decline in Tesla's share of an exploding electric-car market over the next decade, from today's 12.3 percent to 2.8 percent, even as its absolute sales continue to rise.
The Germans' combined market share will surpass Tesla's to reach 11.8 percent in 2020 before increasing further to about 19 percent three years later, according to its projections.
The new Mercedes, due to reach its first customers next year, will be priced close to the fuel-burning GLC to compete in the same bracket as Tesla's $49,000 Model 3, helped by its hotter-selling SUV form.
An affordable Model Y SUV is slated to join Tesla's high-end Model X crossover and Model S car, but not before 2020-21.
Tesla Inc Chief Executive Elon Musk's decision to abruptly abandon a plan to take his electric carmaker private will not resolve his mounting regulatory and legal woes, and may even make them worse, some securities lawyers said.Explaining his reversal in a late-night blog post on Friday, the billionaire CEO said that taking the company private “would be even more time-consuming and distracting than initially anticipated,” and that “most of Tesla’s existing shareholders believe we are better off as a public company.”It was on Aug. 7 that Musk first surprised investors with his plan by tweeting that he had “funding secured” for a go-private deal, which would have had a value of $72 billion. In a separate tweet, he wrote: “Investor support is confirmed."Tesla sues Ontario government over car rebate programMusk and Tesla are facing investor lawsuits and a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission investigation into the truthfulness of the CEO'S Aug. 7 tweets, according to an Aug. 8 report by the Wall Street Journal.The SEC declined to confirm that report to Reuters. A Tesla spokesman declined to comment."The SEC will continue its investigation until it's satisfied that it is on top of the facts," said Stephen Crimmins, an attorney with Murphy & McGonigle who spent 14 years at the SEC, where he prosecuted hundreds of securities cases.Tesla, Musk face SEC wrist slap at worst, experts say"What happened on Friday will be of interest to the SEC because it will allow them to probe whether Musk's pulling back from the go-private somehow indicates that he did not have a reasonable basis for his statement. They will be asking questions of him and others involved in the decision as to why he reversed course."Musk has stuck to his original statement that he believed a deal was possible, and one person familiar with the discussions told Reuters that Musk was serious about taking the carmaker private.But acting in good faith may not be enough to help Musk escape the regulator's gaze.Tesla forms three-member panel to look at any Musk dealU.S. securities law requires public company executives to have a “reasonable basis” on which to make representations to the investing public, and that would likely be the focus of an SEC probe, said three securities lawyers.It remains unclear what Musk meant by “funding secured.” In an Aug. 13 statement, Musk said that he left a July 31 meeting with the managing director of Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund “with no question that a deal ... could be closed.”The Saudi fund had earlier acquired a just-below 5 percent stake in Tesla on the open market. But the fund has made no comment on whether it had promised to back a much larger Tesla go-private deal.Musk says Saudi fund pushed for two years to take Tesla private'FUNDING SECURED'Musk said on Friday he believed there was plenty of potential funding to take the company private, but he did not provide any further details to bolster his "funding secured" assertion.Teresa Goody, CEO of law firm Goody Counsel and a former SEC attorney, said Musk's statement on Friday appeared to undermine his Aug. 7 tweet that investor support was confirmed.She also raised concerns about a second comment Musk made on Friday, where he said it had become apparent that compliance restrictions would prevent many of Tesla's institutional shareholders from holding private Tesla equity.Both statements are likely to raise further questions among SEC officials as to whether Musk had performed sufficient due diligence to have had a reasonable basis for his Aug. 7 tweets, she said.Another statement in the blog that could catch the eye of SEC officials is Musk's reference to his discussion with Tesla's board on Thursday, during which both parties decided not to pursue the deal, said M. Ridgway Barker, a partner and chair of the corporate finance practice at law firm Withersworldwide.Such discussions are unlikely to be subject to legal privilege and the SEC could subpoena minutes of the meeting, he said.“If the board discussion included that the deal is not financeable, or prohibitively expensive, that is going to cast further doubt over Musk’s claims,” he said. 
Musk's U-turn on Tesla deal could intensify his legal, regulatory woes
The EQC softens its higher-riding proportions with sporty curves and a distinctive full-width rear light, while the interior resembles that of the Mercedes C-Class - a reminder of economies of scale that electric-only Tesla cannot match.
Well aware that their earlier battery-car offerings have failed to get anything like Tesla's level of public attention, the German brands are doggedly courting Silicon Valley-style buzz for the coming product blitz.
Executives including Mercedes Chief Executive Dieter Zetsche have taken to appearing in jeans and sneakers, responding to a broader tech-industry incursion into areas such as autonomous driving and connected services.
When it came to the EQC launch, Mercedes picked the city of Stockholm for its startup scene and green credentials, then began firing off teasers on Instagram as well as Twitter.
Like Tesla, Mercedes is announcing EQC orders in Norway even before its price. It has amassed more than 2,000 refundable deposits of 20,000 crowns ($2,400) in Europe's biggest electric-car market, where Tesla sold 8,500 vehicles last year.
The launch is the centrepiece of a three-day event that features DJ sets and yoga with a YouTube star - almost literally bending over backwards to telegraph 21st-century kudos.
Audi on Monday began production of its e-Tron SUV ahead of a Sept. 17 sales launch jamboree in San Francisco, just 40 miles from Tesla's Fremont assembly plant. It also plans to begin taking reservations backed by refundable $1,000 deposits.
The e-Tron is due in showrooms early next year, followed in 2020 by two more electric Audis and the Porsche Taycan sports car from its Volkswagen Group stablemate.
Not to be outdone, BMW has hired a Lufthansa cargo jet to fly its electric Vision iNext - still just a concept car - from Munich to Beijing via New York and, of course, San Francisco. Events are planned in all four cities over five days.
In another Tesla-inspired move, the three German carmakers are developing their own network of fast-chargers along major highways in a partnership with Ford.
While some experts doubt the Germans can ever match the wow factor around Tesla and its founding boss Elon Musk, many also wonder whether they need to.
"German manufacturers have highly desirable, fun-to-drive premium cars in their DNA," said Nicolai Mueller, a McKinsey partner based in Cologne. "That's a very good starting point."
Tesla used its powerful tech aura to persuade early adopters to pay a premium for an all-electric car from a relative unknown, with no quality track-record or physical dealerships for servicing and support.
But the German carmakers have a century of manufacturing behind them, with sterling brands, well developed global sales networks and an existing customer base in the millions.
BMW's i3 mini and an earlier Audi e-Tron failed to shift large volumes, but the electric-car market has matured since. LMC sees China driving global sales growth above 50 percent annually as the German offensive gets underway in 2019-20.
By then the Model S flagship will be eight years old. Musk, by tweeting then withdrawing plans to take Tesla private, has sharpened doubts about the company's ability to keep expanding and updating its lineup.
"Tesla is potentially facing a product shortfall starting in 2020," Jefferies analyst Philippe Houchois warned investors in a note last week.
Tyler Martin, a Tesla owner in Tucson, Arizona, said he had yet to decide whether to buy a Model 3 next - after his current Model S suffered from "build quality" issues requiring several trips to the repair shop each year.
One big question is whether competitors can offer a viable alternative to Tesla's proprietary fast-charging network, the 28-year-old software entrepreneur said.
If they can, Martin added, "I would definitely consider another brand."