- All Mercedes EVs noticed a major drop in year-over-year gross sales in 2024.
- The EQS sedan and SUV misplaced essentially the most, whereas the EQB misplaced the least.
- Mercedes is getting ready to unveil an all-new CLA, which it hopes will herald loads of new EV consumers.
Mercedes-Benz took a bet when it determined to fashion its line of electrical automobiles to appear to be amorphous blobs. Though they’re objectively good EVs that put on one of the prestigious badges within the enterprise, Mercedes’ EQ fashions simply aren’t discovering consumers. Within the U.S. final yr, all three obtainable EVs offered significantly fewer vehicles than in 2023, and the EQS noticed essentially the most important dip.
Mercedes’ annual figures pool gross sales of the EQS sedan and EQS SUV, which in 2024 totaled 6,963 items in comparison with 14,499 items in 2023. That’s a 52% drop, and it exhibits the brutal actuality of electrical car gross sales final yr, which noticed elevated competitors and extra consumers selecting hybrids or plug-in hybrids.
The EQE sedan and SUV didn’t do significantly better final yr, promoting 11,660 items in comparison with 19,104 items 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% improve 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 giant 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 whole passenger automotive gross sales within the U.S. final yr (round 1.3 million automobiles), up from 7.6%, in accordance with preliminary estimates offered by Cox Automotive. Even when the ultimate numbers will differ barely, it nonetheless means EVs had a greater yr than we thought, taking a look at all of the studies about cooling gross sales and the way extra consumers had been taking a look at 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 will probably be rear-wheel-drive-biased, with both NMC or LFP batteries (which Mercedes desires to mix in the identical pack sooner or later) and non-compulsory dual-motor all-wheel drive. It’s constructed on a brand new bespoke EV platform referred to as MMA, which may also underpin at the least two crossovers, one in every of which will probably be a seven-seater.
The producer is aware of the design of its present bespoke EVs wasn’t very effectively acquired, so it can make its subsequent technology of electrical automobiles look extra just like the combustion vehicles it sells. The alternative for the EQS sedan, as an illustration, guarantees to be a real electrical S-Class, which ought to assist it carry again these consumers 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 an alternative or an S-Class plug-in hybrid.
