No one stays on top of the world forever. Empires crumble. The stars of today are the has-beens of tomorrow. Sic transit gloria mundi and all that. Mercedes-Benz has long been the luxury car in the United States, but after usurping the domestic luxury brands it, too, is on shaky ground.
I say all this because Mercedes-Benz is naming a new sales captain, and the hope is that he’ll be able to turn the ship around. Can he do it? Maybe! It’s not like things are great at German rival Volkswagen, though the company has the Rivian deal to help. And Volvo? Geely-owned brands seem to be the ones most disrupted by tariffs, which is causing problems in Europe.
A lot of the disruption at major automakers has to do with electric cars, which leads to our final story about gas stations and EV stations and when the latter will overtake the former. It’s sooner than you might think.
Mercedes Has To Fix Its EV Problems If It Wants To Survive
The teens were a great decade for Mercedes. In spite of losing some ground in luxury sedans to Tesla, the brand’s strong mix of crossovers and SUVs led the company to a record in 2015. That year the company sold 380,461 vehicles (if you include Smart and vans), including more than 86,000 copies of the C-Class sedan and 32,550 M-Class SUVs.
Mercedes would go on to have more great years, leading the luxury segment in the United States from 2016 to 2018. Since then? It’s been a little rougher. Beyond Tesla, the German luxury brand has fallen behind a stronger BMW and a surging Lexus.
In 2023, Lexus sold 320,249 vehicles, up 23.8% from 2022, and BMW sold 362,244, up about 9% from the prior year. Over that same period, Mercedes hit 351,746 units sold, an increase of just 0.2%.
All of these companies are trying to compete in the electrified vehicle space, with BMW offering what I think are the best EVs of the three, Lexus offering way more hybrids, and Mercedes-Benz selling an unusual mix of electric cars that are not particularly compelling.
This has caught up with Mercedes this year. In an EV market that’s growing, but at a slower rate than in the past, Mercedes Q2 EV sales were down 36% year-over-year. While sales of the cheaper EQB are up year-over-year through the first half of the year (by about 4%), both the EQE Sedan/SUV (-4%) and EQS Sedan/SUV (-52%) are hurting.
Why is this happening? I think Mercedes continues to build good-to-great gas-powered cars and SUVs for people who want something luxurious. The design language isn’t always to my taste, which may be a net positive for the brand if you’ve ever seen the kind of aesthetic I’m into. I find the interiors, punctuated by neon tones, a bit too Berlin disco. I may be in the minority.
After seeing the S-Class fall to the Tesla Model S it seems like Mercedes was ready to strike back with a whole line of cars under the EQ banner. The first car was the Mercedes EQS sedan, a sort of S-Class for people who wanted an EV, which debuted in 2021 as a production model.
It’s… it’s fine? I cannot make one reasonable argument for buying the EQS. It looks like what the Dodge Intrepid would have become if Daimler had kept Chrysler, but not in a good way. It needs a way larger battery pack to achieve a range that’s worth more than either a Lucid Air or a Model S, mostly because its estimated 35 kWh/100 miles is mediocre.
The cheapest EQS, the 450+, is $104,400, compared to the much better and more efficient Lucid Air Pure, which is now just under $70,000. While the Tesla Model S might be aging, a Model S with an old design is a superior vehicle and only costs $72,990.
The same is true of the EQS SUV and the EQE Sedan/SUV. While not explicitly bad, none of them are better than any of the competition and all are more expensive. The one kind of OK one is the least-EQish, the EQB SUV, which is basically an electrified GLB, though the EQB is still all kinds of meh and expensive.
Actually, there are two good ones. The giant, ridiculous Mercedes-Benz Gwagen EV is cool. The Sprinter EV is also kinda great and I need to write up my review of that vehicle. The difference here is that the G and Sprinter EVs are vehicles that look and feel like modern Mercedes products and not some strange, blobby analogs.
What’s Mercedes doing about this? U.S. sales chief Senol Bayrak is being shipped to Germany and Bart Herring, currently in charge of Canadian operations, is coming back to the United States reports Automotive News.
According to a retailer memo obtained by Automotive News, Herring will be responsible for “driving new- and used-vehicle sales performance” and work in “close collaboration” with Mercedes retailers. Herring also will lead the product team “driving our EV, PHEV & ICE portfolio towards an exciting and sustainable future,” the memo said.
[…]
It’s going to be hard. Mercedes needs a serious rethink of its EV and PHEV products if it wants to be competitive, and they’re so far behind it might take a while.
Volvo Revises Down Sales Estimates Due To EV Tariffs
Geely owns Polestar, Volvo, Lotus, Zeekr, and a few other car brands with eyes on export markets. These plans have been disrupted by a backlash from Western Governments against Chinese-built vehicles.
In the United States, Polestar and Volvo will likely be able to skate by on import/export rules because of domestic production, but that’s not going to help Lotus. Volvo and Polestar are both trying to bring non-Chinese production online, but the company doesn’t think it’ll be able to do it fast enough to avoid a negative impact on sales.
While reporting better-than-expected second-quarter results that sent its shares up 6% in morning trade, Volvo lowered its forecast for sales growth this year to 12%-15% from 15%.
“It’s really driven by tariffs,” CEO Jim Rowan told Reuters. “It’s a short term issue for us, but it is an issue and we’re just going to have to deal with that.”
Volvo is rapidly trying to ramp up its EX30 production in Ghent, Belgium next year to deal with these sudden tariffs.
Is The VW-Rivian Deal Smart?
I mentioned that the VW-Rivian deal was a bad sign for the industry, as it showed even a large company with a lot of engineers like VW couldn’t get out of its own way when it comes to developing the key software required to make modern vehicles.
It’s also a bad sign for other automakers as this might give VW a much-needed leg up in the race to build the car of the future, and not just in the realm of software. Here’s what S&P Global Mobility had to say about the differences in vehicle architecture between the two companies:
According to Richard Dixon, senior principal analyst, E/E and Semi, S&P Global Mobility, Rivian’s E/E architecture is built with a different approach to that of Volkswagen’s, which is necessarily developed on a standing electronic control unit (ECU) and domain architecture that is not well suited to making a pure zone design.
“Rivian’s approach is like Tesla’s — its E/E architecture is designed from a clean sheet with one propulsion system in mind and very little legacy domain-based hardware. The first-generation R1 model has only 17 ECUs, wherein equivalent electric cars will have more than 60. R1’s successor, R2, has only seven ECUs. There are three zones and four main domain controllers and only three ECUs. This is mostly attributed to a ‘pure’ zonal design where the domains and zones take a lot of management of local actuators, removing need for local controllers [ECUs]. This is different from some designs coming from established OEMs, which still carry some domain architectures and yet can’t be free of that need to carry them over for reasons concerning cost of parts requalification, among others,” said Dixon. For this reason, Rivian’s hardware is better or on a par with many of its rivals (outside mainland China), he added.
It sounds like you’re working for your ECUs… simplify, man!
Fast EV Chargers Will Outnumber Gas Stations In 2032
If you think about EV charging as access to electricity, then EV chargers way outnumber gas stations because there are plugs everywhere and most cars will let you slow-charge on a 110v outlet if absolutely necessary.
Fast chargers, though? Not so much. That’ll change in roughly eight years according to this analysis from Bloomberg:
At the current pace, public fast-charging sites will outnumber gas stations in the US in about eight years — but charger momentum is only expected to accelerate. North American operators will spend a collective $6.1 billion on charging infrastructure this year, nearly double their 2023 investment, according to BloombergNEF estimates. That annual spend is expected to double again by 2030.
That’s sooner than I’d have expected.
What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD
I know it’s a BRAT summer, but let’s throw back a little to some vintage Charli XCX and “Boom Clap” from some movie I was too old to care about it when it debuted. I need the energy, a couple of weeks of travel and I’m wiped.
The Big Question
Mercedes, huh? What do we think? What do they need to do?
Well one thing that won’t help is shuffling sales directors around. It’s not like the issue is that not enough people know about their great new lineup…the products are just bad. I don’t think you’re in the minority on the interiors, they look like a strip club.
BMW is ascendant and is absolutely cleaning MB’s clock in this segment. I’m trying to think of what to suggest to get them back on track but nothing is really coming to mind. They don’t have major partnerships to draw on and their PHEV systems are meh. Their EVs are bloated and require severe design compromises to achieve even passable range.
First and foremost they need to update their interior design language to get back to things that appeal to their core buyers. They went wrong initially trying to court the Lexus entry luxury segment – time to stop doing that. Then they just went off the deep end in general.
Next, I’d probably develop an EREV platform where they can mask the inefficiencies of their EV platform with range extenders. I heard a rumor that there was a range extender in development for their EVs that was canceled. Time to dust that off.
Fortunately, our own resident writer Mercedes–by contrast–is as excellent as she’s ever been.
Best I have is a lemon, or maybe a giant portabello mushroom. 🙂 I can’t even remember when was the last time I even touched an apple.
As a proud w126 owner, I remember seeing the EQ line come out and all I could think was “really?”
So are you saying that Mercedes is to chop down the mightiest tree in the forest with, a Herring?
If they refuse, then I demand a shrubbery!
Like the Terminator, they will be back.
Besides it’s only a flesh wound…
Me neither. I could maybe see more individual fast chargers than gas stations. Maybe it’s because I live in a small city near Appalachia, and most of my travel is relatively rural. Our historic hotel got a Tesla charger 7-8 years ago, and there’s a truck manufacturer up the road that’s had chargers for maybe a decade, but the only others I’ve seen popped up at Sheetz stations in the last couple of years
You have GOT to stop writing just Mercedes and write Mercedes-Benz.
I saw the headline and immediately thought “Oh God. She bought a W12 Phaeton, didn’t she.”
Honestly, Mercedes seems like such a shrewd negotiator, I’d expect that she’d still come out ahead on any W12 Phaeton she purchased.
MB mainly sells conservative cars to an older demographic (albeit often with new technology, but the styling and feel is conservative), both due to general appeal and pricing. Turning their vehicle interiors into giant, overcomplicated touchscreens that (maybe) appeal to a younger crowd that can’t afford and is unlikely to want the rest of the vehicle doesn’t fit the car or the demographic. Styling that’s distinctively indistinctive also doesn’t help when much of the appeal of a higher end brand is the brand. When people can’t instantly tell what it is, it loses appeal. Hell, just selling a brand logo and visual signature is the very successful model of much of the fashion industry (and uncountable knockoffs)! To top that, MB has traditionally had a kind of imposing elegance to their style and the soap bar EVs are neither. Finally, another major part of the traditional appeal of the brand (which they’ve gotten away from, but at least more or less maintained in appearance and feel in their ICE cars) is being engineered for longevity and designed for timelessness. Touchscreens say anything but longevity and timelessness.
I think this is an overlooked point. Mercedes-Benz built their reputation as builders of bulletproof tanks with durable yet comfortable cars. They need to put more effort into that and less into chasing trends (like the aforementioned touchscreens).
I’m old enough where growing up a Benz was a high quality vehicle as well as a status symbol. So sometimes I momentarily forget about “modern Mercedes” and wonder if I should spend the coin on one of these high quality cars instead of another Toyota.
Luckily I research car purchases and quick get brought back to earth when I go on a Mercedes owners forum where people share their tales at the dealership service department.
No lie: my dad brought his S600 in for service once to a Mercedes dealership, and the shop mistakenly sold it. Worse, they sold it to another dealer who promptly sold it to one of their customers. The whole thing only came to light when the first dealership went looking for the title and couldn’t find it.
Let’s just say my dad was a lot more sanguine about the whole thing than I would have been.
German Buick.
I dated Gloria Mundi back in college. Briefly.
This Gloria:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlWiQ69DGE0
I don’t think this is an apples to apples comparison either though. Everything I see says chargers, so if you go to the mall and it has like 5 EV chargers, I think those are being counted individually vs one gas station? Maybe? I’m probably wrong but the terminology being used is ambiguous.
That’s how I read it, too–chargers versus complete gas stations, not chargers vs. gas pumps.
Yeah and if that’s accurate, it’s a dumb comparison. The smallest gas stations have at least 2 pumps, with your average Bucees style having hundreds. Counting that as one while the mall has 12 chargers makes no sense whatsoever.
It takes users 10X as long to use them, so it’ll take 10X as many of them as gas pumps to serve the same number of users.
Yep, this is the lie in this particular statistic: it’s not apples to apples. A gas pump can service a dozen vehicles in an hour. An EV charger might only service one.
Many EV drivers get their fuel at home and DCFast charge very occasionally. It’s not a direct comparison and can be a problem for demand planning. As for it taking 10x that’s not accurate for road trips, you don’t go 10-80% every stop with proper travel planning that is built into most EVs. You generally stop for about 15 -20 minutes and you don’t fill up like you would in an ICE vehicle. Its more frequent stops but shorter overall because of battery charging curves.
EV road trips are stopping every few hours to charge enough to make the next charger. That’s usually a 10-15 minute charge going from 20%-60%. Batteries charge fairly quickly at that state of charge and slow down starting at about 60%. That charge rate gets even slower the more charge it takes. The battery runs out of room for electrons.
Exactly. My trip to Idaho from California in my EV the stops were not even long enough for me to hit the restroom. It’s also why peak charge rate is not always the most important part; charge curve is another import piece.
My own opinion is that the Mercedes EQ lineup designs are hot garbage. They look god-awful, and certainly not worth of $100k+. They are not something I’d aspire to own, and if I was one of their wealthy demographic that tends to be older, I certainly wouldn’t want all of those stupid screens and disco-style interior lighting. They need to make cars that are restrained and timeless in design and high-quality, but instead build trendy tech-mobiles for the nouveaux-riche. Also, they completely diluted the AMG brand just like BMW diluted the M brand. Total cynical marketing ploy for the badge-conscious.
Yep. Mercedes-Benz really missed the mark on the styling of the EQ cars. Yes, I know they’re optimized for Cd and such, but Mercedes-Benz must have forgotten who they are. We don’t want cars styled like aerodynamic lozenges from Mercedes-Benz; that’s something you’d more expect of Hyundai (and, by contrast, the IONIQ 5 is a gorgeous work of art).
They’re also…not even that great at that? The Air has a Cd of 0.1 more, looks way better, is way cheaper, and has better range options. Sure there’s the issue of whether Lucid will make it long-term, but boy I’d rather have an Air than an EQugly.
Spot on.
I like the top shot!
Seconded!
Apropos of the Volvo/Polestar news, I saw the small Polestar sedan today (no idea how they’re named), and I have to say, it was pretty ugly.
I’ve seen Polestars before and thought they were clean & modern, albeit not exactly exciting. But this one was crossing me at an intersection, so I got the full side view, and it was very awkwardly proportioned. Some of it was the dumb cladding, which was too high a percentage of the side surface (the thing looked 60% white, 40% gray), but most of it was the giant wheels. I know that Adrian & The Bishop swear to us that big wheels make everything look better, but this thing looked somewhere between a child’s toy (not a die-cast replica, but something from Fisher-Price) and a badly-done custom job with giant rims. Yuck.
Mercedes and VW essentially made the exact same mistake. They went balls to the wall on EVs immediately, completely threw their ICE plans out the window, disregarded hybrids, and decided to make their EVs into absurd tech showcases that allowed their German engineers to do what German engineers do best….come up with absurdly complex solutions to problems that no one has.
VW is a big enough company that they’ve been able to back track a bit and are about to be offering some neat transition products…like the new hybridized A5/S5 that I am once again asking for an article on. VAG also has Porsche which is a money printing machine. Even though VW products are painfully mid right now they’re a diverse enough company that I think they can weather this.
Oh, and the Rivian partnership seems smart to me. VW’s software and interfaces are an absolute dystopian nightmare and their EVs are near the back of the pack when it comes to range. They also don’t have any products that appeal to truck buyers or people that either off road or want to look like they off road. Rivian is, in fact, great in all those areas. I think it will benefit both companies.
But Mercedes is in big trouble, because their EVs are garbage. They’re too expensive, they took a big swing on a 3-2 pitch and struck out on the styling, and the cars are really hard to use on a day to day basis because they’re so crammed with bleeding edge technology. Every single review of an EQ product that I’ve seen has described them as hard to use and so full of screens and assorted bells and whistles that they’re incredibly distracting.
To add insult to injury, Mercedes essentially doesn’t have any hybrids and they’ve already thrown their amazing ICE products out the window as well. They made a big, virtue signaling deal about going all EV and focusing on THE FUTURE and completely ignored the fact that people, unsurprisingly, really like their high performance ICE engines.
The new AMG C class and GLC models are a laughing stock. They weigh 5,000 pounds and are somehow the worst of both worlds. The full fat ones are PHEVs that have almost no usable range paired with a 200+ horsepower per liter 4 cylinder that sounds like an angry hornet’s nest…and the 43s now just have the angry 4 cylinder. They’re all currently sitting on lots because everyone wants the V8 and V6 back.
Anyway, they’re in big trouble and are going to have to make some gambles and backtrack. I’m really not sure why more manufacturers didn’t do what BMW is doing. Outside of the iX abomination all of their EVs are literally just electric versions of their regular cars. You can sit in a 430i or 530i and then sit in an i4 or i5 and there’s no difference. You operate and interact with them the same.
Their model is basically “pick the car, pick the powertrain that best suits you”…and on top of that they have PHEVs too. The new 5 series has a turbo 4, god’s own engine the B58, multiple full electric options, and god’s own engine paired with a PHEV system that goes nearly 50 miles on battery. Literally any luxury buyer can go to a BMW dealership and get exactly what they want…that’s why they’re thriving.
Lexus and Toyota just went all in on hybrids. It’s working well right now, but they’re going to struggle in a few years since they’re so far behind on EVs. I’m pro hybrid and think they’re the best option in 2024, but come the late 2020s things will have changed a lot, and I still think EVs are inevitable. They may have some trouble then.
Again, why do we think Toyota is “behind on EVs”? They’ve put more big batteries in production cars than anyone. They’ve been researching batteries as long, if not longer than anyone since they were selling hybrids the whole time. They supposedly are close to solid state being production-ready.
Just because they didn’t introduce an EV everything, doesn’t mean they couldn’t pivot if they felt it was right for the market.
Ilika
i fear for MB.
I don’t understand how moving US sales guy to Germany and Canadian Ops guy to fill his shoes in US will help with a product strategy.
sounds more to me like moving around deck chairs on the titanic (or is that the SS Executive Bonus Plan?).
moreover, a new product strategy/lineup is gonna take years to develop and deploy.
Did Lewis Hamilton know something when he jumped to ferrari?
Nothing MB makes is interesting, it’s all milquetoast meh.
35 years ago, a retired US Army officer told me: “In Germany, all the taxis are Mercedes”.
That’s what they were known for. Over built as in overly robust, not over-complicated. The quality took a serious hit during the merger years, and I wouldn’t consider buying one from those years. The 44k mileage 2010 C300 with v6 I picked up at the height of COVID inflation for $11k I still consider a screaming deal, but I won’t buy a newer one.
Yeah, but by the same token almost all the taxis in NYC were Crown Victorias for a while. In London they’re black cabs.
When will they design EV charging areas in the form of a service station, with weather protection, maybe a store, etc., instead of a bunch of shit out in the open at the back of a Target parking lot?
In contrast, I’m now just imagining the future of Gas pumps will be random stand alone pumps in dark back corners of parking lots. Basically, that EV charging and gas pumps are going to swap places.
They have already. The reason it took this long is because the percentage of EV drivers was very low, so they were relegated to odd installation areas. Now that EVs are more popular you are seeing them with canopies and other amenities. It’s a slow change but it’s happening.
I see more chargers at gas stations around me and the truck stops are installing them. Some still without overhangs but its progressing. I have seen many more with solar panels as the overhang.
Unpopular opinion: I’d rather be caught dead in a new Mercedes than alive in a BMW.
Right now, Mercedes seems to make meh gas cars that look nice, while BMW is making great cars that look like shit.
That was true until they unveiled the new Angry Birds pig-nosed E-Class. At least the S is still classy.
I don’t think it’s bad. I think it looks way better than a 5-series, and I personally prefer it to the A6, but not by much.
Yeah I dunno, for me that big plastic star-studded panel ruins it, but then again I would only own an E-Class with a hood ornament and no grille badge.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/fd/Mercedes-Benz_W214_1X7A1841.jpg/2560px-Mercedes-Benz_W214_1X7A1841.jpg
Stop making derivative soap bar designs with a three point star being the only distinctive mark. Or at least fool us into thinking visually that they’re not bars of soap. The “grille” on the EQS is ugly with all the piano black and obviously painted on chrome. It fools nobody and apes the early Model S. Their designers make multiples of my salary. They can come up with something better. Not sure what that may be but I’ll know it when I see it.
I’m shocked that you guys haven’t reported on the Mustang GTD option that allows one rich Chad to lock out every other one from a paint code
Dibs on Black!
You can only lockout Midnight Black. Starlight Black, Souls of the Damned Black, Jet Black, Onyx Black, Shadow Black, Sombra Black, Raven Black, and Ink Black will still be available for other Chads to lock.
I would like void, from Armani
No Vantablack? Or Black 4.0?
I did fail to include Fuligin, the color that is darker than black.
Viper 1:1 program did this too, and I imagine other expensive cars would if you paid enough.
Porsche does this with PTS if you create the color and I’d assume other high end marques do as well. I know with Porsche if someone requests your color you get the right to approve or deny it, though.
I’ll take Tangerine Scream
I’m thinking a purple one, called Statutory Grape.
Mercedes is just in a sad state of late, the designs seem like they’re just a little stuck and fussy the EVs are awful to look at, and the interiors look like bad hookah bars…
Gone is that restraint and teutonic approach to quality.
“restraint” is what made german design so compelling in the 80s and 90s. The big 3 were doing rounded melted turd designs, meanwhile ze germans were making these boxier profile cars with very refined details, and even the performance models were barely differentiated from the base models, just all very ‘restrainted’.
This is why modern cars are going to age horribly; most of them are busy and overdesigned.
I couldn’t agree more. Both BMW and Mercedes designs as of late have lost their “timeless” design cues, and imo, will age poorly. The midsize w211 and w212 were great designs (and the same year s-class models), but the w213 and newer seem to have really strayed away from their classic design influences.
I really don’t think ADD was referring to the 211 and 212
I was adding on to his comment. I agree with the w210 and earlier designs, but I think Mercedes kept that reserved, timeless design into the 212 chassis as well.
100% this. That’s why I’m into Audi but they’ve sort of lost the plot on restraint too. Everything is a fad with auto design these days. Just look at those full-width light bars on every new car’s rear-end. Audi pioneered the use of LED signature DRLs but then everyone copied them and Audi just went balls-out on the design of all of their lighting. Not sure I like it. Give me Audi design from the 2010s and earlier, please.
I stopped liking their designs whenever they replaced the B5. They have some more attractive models since, but too many have the giant grill thing going on that looks dumb imho.
The exteriors look like a computer mouse to me. The interior looking like a bad hookah bar is perfect, Mercedes really channels the essense of Steinway St. in Astoria.
STEINWAY IS EXACTLY IT. That’s absolutely perfect.
BMW and Lexus made the right call by making their electric and hybrid cars not look any different than their gas versions and making the BEV or PHEV version the top trim. Luxury buyers want what they already know and what they don’t have to explain why it’s cool.
Making a separate “EQ” sub-brand is confusing in the alphabet soup that is German brands.
“It sounds like you’re working for your ECUs… simplify, man!”
Before now, I was pretty sure myself and my friend Steve were the only people on earth who quoted this on a regular basis. Thanks for this.
Mercedes needs to return to the days of “Engineered like no other car in the world”; not “engineered like every other car in the world”. I’ve owned Merceds for 35 years, won’t buy another one. Sad, they were great but given into fashion instead of quality few appreciate today.
Here here.
I recall a story from 20 years ago that they passivated every engine part. At some point, stopped doing this, like every other car in the world.
I remember people saying this same thing back when Mercedes started huge cost cutting measures back in the late ’90s and early aughts.
which led to a huge, perceptible, change in quality in the 2000’s. The w211 chassis had MANY issues when it first came out, and the w212 had the biggest mid-cycle facelift of any Mercedes up until that point.