- All Mercedes EVs noticed a big drop in year-over-year gross sales in 2024.
- The EQS sedan and SUV misplaced probably the most, whereas the EQB misplaced the least.
- Mercedes is making ready to unveil an all-new CLA, which it hopes will herald quite a lot of new EV patrons.
Mercedes-Benz took a chance when it determined to model its line of electrical automobiles to seem like amorphous blobs. Regardless that they’re objectively good EVs that put on probably the most prestigious badges within the enterprise, Mercedes’ EQ fashions simply aren’t discovering patrons. Within the U.S. final yr, all three obtainable EVs offered significantly fewer vehicles than in 2023, and the EQS noticed probably the most vital dip.
Mercedes’ annual figures pool gross sales of the EQS sedan and EQS SUV, which in 2024 totaled 6,963 models in comparison with 14,499 models in 2023. That’s a 52% drop, and it exhibits the brutal actuality of electrical automobile gross sales final yr, which noticed elevated competitors and extra patrons selecting hybrids or plug-in hybrids.
The EQE sedan and SUV didn’t do a lot better final yr, promoting 11,660 models in comparison with 19,104 models in 2023, marking a 39% lower. The EQB, Mercedes’ smallest electrical providing within the U.S., noticed the bottom decline (36%), with gross sales taking place from 13,797 in 2023 to eight,885 final yr.
Mercedes’ personal knowledge proves that demand for plug-in hybrids is on the rise, because it reported a 470% enhance year-over-year. That is partly defined by the truth that the producer had extra PHEVs on sale in 2024 in comparison with the yr earlier than. It at present sells 5 PHEVs within the States, which supply class-leading electric-only vary.
The GLC350e, as an illustration, has an EPA-rated vary of 54 miles due to its massive 23.3-kilowatt-hour battery, and it helps DC quick charging at as much as 60 kW. Even with the decrease EV gross sales, mixed EV and PHEV gross sales made up 15% of all Mercs offered final yr within the States.
EVs accounted for round 8% of complete passenger automobile gross sales within the U.S. final yr (round 1.3 million automobiles), up from 7.6%, in accordance with preliminary estimates supplied by Cox Automotive. Even when the ultimate numbers will differ barely, it nonetheless means EVs had a greater yr than we thought, all of the experiences about cooling gross sales and the way extra patrons have been hybrids and PHEVs.
Mercedes will quickly reveal an all-new CLA, which guarantees to be a tech powerhouse with each electrical and hybrid powertrains. The electrical variant might be rear-wheel-drive-biased, with both NMC or LFP batteries (which Mercedes desires to mix in the identical pack sooner or later) and optionally available dual-motor all-wheel drive. It’s constructed on a brand new bespoke EV platform referred to as MMA, which may even underpin not less than two crossovers, considered one of which might be a seven-seater.
The producer is aware of the design of its present bespoke EVs wasn’t very properly obtained, so it would make its subsequent technology of electrical automobiles look extra just like the combustion vehicles it sells. The substitute for the EQS sedan, as an illustration, guarantees to be a real electrical S-Class, which ought to assist it carry again these patrons who averted the present mannequin particularly due to the way in which it regarded, a few of whom most likely purchased the extra conventional-looking Lucid Air as a substitute or an S-Class plug-in hybrid.
