- All Mercedes EVs noticed a big 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 making ready to unveil an all-new CLA, which it hopes will herald plenty of new EV patrons.
Mercedes-Benz took a bet when it determined to type its line of electrical automobiles to appear like amorphous blobs. Though 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 bought 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 patrons 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 happening from 13,797 in 2023 to eight,885 final yr.
Mercedes’ personal information 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, for example, 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 bought final yr within the States.
EVs accounted for round 8% of complete passenger automotive gross sales within the U.S. final yr (round 1.3 million automobiles), up from 7.6%, in response to 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, taking a look at all of the studies about cooling gross sales and the way extra patrons 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 likely be rear-wheel-drive-biased, with both NMC or LFP batteries (which Mercedes needs 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 known as MMA, which will even underpin not less than two crossovers, certainly one of which will likely be a seven-seater.
The producer is aware of the design of its present bespoke EVs wasn’t very effectively obtained, so it’ll make its subsequent era of electrical automobiles look extra just like the combustion vehicles it sells. The substitute for the EQS sedan, for example, 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 best way 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.
