Good news for electric motorists who don’t want the faff of wrestling with cables and plugs. Next year’s Mercedes-Benz S-Class 500 e electric hybrid will have the option of plug-free induction charging. You just drive over a plate and leave the car to top itself up.

The 2017 500 e is an update on the existing Mercedes 500 plug-in hybrid. Like that car, the 500 e will have a turbocharged petrol engine and an electric motor, and will offer an electric-only range of about 20 miles.

Owners will be able to position the car over a special coil in a protected base plate in their garage (for example). A message in the car will alert the driver when the car is in a transmittable location. The presence of a second coil in the car will then create an electromagnetic field that will act as a carrier of electrical energy at a power output of 3.6kWh.

Smartphones use similar technology for wireless charging. Mercedes claims a figure of 90% efficiency for the system, which is only slightly lower than the figure for plugging in, so charging times will only be marginally longer.

It’s quite likely that an autonomous driving function will be integrated with the charging procedure, meaning that owners could even let the 500 e make its own way to the charging point.

The induction charging technology will start off as an optional extra but will almost certainly feature on all electrified Mercedes-Benzes over time. Both Mercedes and BMW are under pressure to speed up their electric programmes following the revelation of German government plans to ban polluting combustion-engined cars by the end of the 2020s.