The EQ series never became the success for Mercedes that the Germans had hoped for. Over time, the name and at least one of the models disappear.
Mercedes has already made it clear that it will phase out the use of the EQ name for its electric cars. And now the German-Swedish director Ola Källenius makes it clear that the EQS model will disappear completely.
At least the name works. Instead, Mercedes falls back to the top model designation, the brand has had a market stronghold since 1972.
Källenius says so in an interview with Auto Car .
Specifically, Mercedes is getting ready to follow two tracks when it comes to the S-Class. The model is split up so that customers have the choice between combustion engines and electric motors.
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– In the future, there will be two S-Classes, one with a combustion engine and one with an electric engine, says Källenius to the media.
The news comes only shortly after Mercedes dropped its entire chrome-plated plan to only build electric cars in 2030. The brand is not growing at all at the pace the Germans thought just a few years ago.
At the same time, Ola Källenius has reportedly stopped the development of not just one but several new electric cars. Some of the money – we are talking about billions of kroner – from that development, the Mercedes people will and must now use to develop 'highly efficient internal combustion engines with hybrid technology'. Read more about it here .
However, the electric S-Class is not going to compete with a combustion engine for the time being. The plan is that Mercedes, with at least one significant facelift in 2027, will keep the current S-Class alive until 2030.
As early as next year, EQS will also receive a major update with an 800-volt architecture which, among other things, The Porsche Taycan is known for. But the name EQS disappears just as quietly.
The fact that the S-Class continues, however, is not due to any resounding sales success. Because while dealers in particular complain that it is difficult to sell electric Mercedes models in general, interest in the S-Class has also decreased.
Globally, the top model lost 37 percent of its sales in the first quarter of 2024. As a consequence, the factory, where both the S-Class and EQS are built side-by-side, has now gone down to just one shift.
That EQS flops is not the only defeat for Mercedes in recent years, however. The brand also had to admit that it was not a good idea to build a pickup truck.
The X-Class, which is basically a Nissan Navara with a different logo in the hood, was discontinued after a production run of just two years.
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