As of: March 1, 2024, 8:00 a.m
By: Lars-Eric Nievelstein
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The Chinese market is highly competitive among car manufacturers.
Mercedes had originally planned to consolidate its position in China with an electric sedan.
Now the manufacturer is shelving the project.
Stuttgart – Car manufacturers around the world are busy bringing electric cars onto the market and securing part of the market.
Mercedes-Benz even wanted to develop a mixture of sedan and SUV for the Chinese market that would drive electrically.
Now it is clear: the project is on the back burner for now.
Why is that?
Originally planned reference year for SUS |
2025 |
|---|---|
Company Name |
Mercedes Benz |
Consolidated results 2023 (EBIT) |
19.7 billion euros |
Mercedes announces new car archetypes
It started in May 2022: At that time, Mercedes CEO Ola Källenius announced when presenting the luxury strategy that he wanted to offer a new model in the business sedan segment that was “based on the EVA2 platform and is specifically tailored to the Chinese market”.
As the
Handelsblatt
reported, head of design Gorden Wagener had spoken of a new “archetype”, an unprecedented vehicle class.
The SUS (Sport Utility Sedan) was intended to combine the strengths of SUV and sedan.
The group initially stated 2025 as the reference year.
Major car manufacturer cancels China plans – “Completely new archetype” remains blueprint © IMAGO / Michael Gstettenbauer
The SUS should expand Mercedes' repertoire in the E-Class segment.
Not only was it supposed to be a completely new class of vehicle, but it was also supposed to be produced exclusively in China.
The first purely Chinese Mercedes – at least that was the plan.
Now the project appears to be obsolete.
Citing three insiders, the paper said that the new car class would not appear in the foreseeable future.
There are already enough electric cars for China
Upon request, Mercedes told
Ippen.Media
that the EQ portfolio was already large enough.
It “comprises a wide range of fully electric passenger cars on the market with nine BEV vehicles launched,” a spokesman said.
Mercedes thus serves a wide range of customer requirements - from the EQS to the EQS SUV, a 7-seater.
The company is targeting new customer demographics that it wants to attract.
There is also still room for improvement in the top-end segment, which Mercedes wants to develop further.
This is supposed to happen, for example, with the recently launched Mercedes-Maybach EQS SUV.
The existing and planned BEV line-up (battery-operated cars) is already large enough to completely cover the market requirements of the Chinese market.
The company spokesman explained: “In order to reduce complexity, we have therefore decided not to continue the project of a China-specific additional vehicle based on the EVA 2 architecture for the time being.”
Electrical expansion suffers setbacks
Since the federal government ended funding for electric cars in December, demand has continued to decline.
Actually, this goes exactly against the EU's plans: Hard emissions limits stipulate that car manufacturers would have to drastically reduce their CO₂ emissions.
For manufacturers, this means that they need a higher proportion of electric cars in their portfolio.
It is not certain whether the German automotive industry will be able to make the transition.
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Mercedes is currently keeping a back door open in order to be able to continue building models with combustion engines.
“I am very happy that we are flexible,” Källenius recently explained.
“We can build highly efficient combustion cars, but also plug-in hybrids and electric vehicles on the same production line.”
Mercedes only wants to switch from combustion engines to electric cars where market conditions allow it.
“We don’t know the time for the last combustion engine,” said Källenius.
Among other things, he sees the expansion of the charging infrastructure and the abolition of state funding as brakes on the ramp-up of e-mobility.