We are close to losing dozens of models on the market. And, in addition, the survivors will be very similar to each other. Too much, perhaps. The last manufacturer to confirm that it will slim down its offer is Mercedes, but it will not be the only one. We seem destined for a very small and standardized market.
Goodbye to 19 bodies. This is what Car and Driver insures in the United States. According to its internal sources, Mercedes will drastically reduce its product offering. Between the United States and Europe, we will gradually say goodbye to 19 bodies. It will go from 33 options to just 14 bodies to choose from.
Among the great ones, the family versions and the three-door coupes. “We simply don’t need low-performance estates or two-door offerings to increase volumes. The essentials for sustainable contemporary luxury cars are space and time… That’s our number one priority, not another fancy body, a model that only works in Europe, or a last attempt in a dying segment,” their sources have assured Car and Driver.
less and more exclusive. Those indicated, therefore, will be the relatives (which the public has been putting aside in favor of the SUV) and the three-door coupes. Especially the convertibles. The models that will say goodbye first will be the C and E-Class roadsters, whose death the American newspaper dates in 2023 and 2024. The CLS and the four-door version of the AMG GT will also say goodbye from 2024. And the next generations of the GLC and GLE coupé should be the last, if the aforementioned plans are met.
The same should happen with the relatives of the next Mercedes Class C, E and CLA, even arriving the latter as an electric vehicle. But, looking for the models with the highest performance per unit, Mercedes also has on the horizon the arrival of models such as a GT Coupe (with a Maybach version if desired), a new four-door coupe, a Mercedes SL with more space and a new AMG-GT.
not the first. Of course, Mercedes is not the first firm that is opting for the path of reducing its offer and polarizing its prices, paying special attention to its most expensive vehicles. And the numbers prove him right: in 2021 he sold 370,000 fewer vehicles than in 2020 and 730,000 fewer cars than in 2019. And yet, he made profits worth 14,000 million euros, doubling the figures for 2020 and 2019.
A strategy that BMW has imitated. Olivier Zipse, its CEO, has stressed that they are not working on a volume strategy. Again, the goal is to sell less quantity, but much more expensive. Even Volkswagen, a manufacturer that has always fought to be the automobile group that puts the most units on the market, has decided to pivot towards this strategy.
“The key objective is not growth (…) We are more focused on quality and margins, rather than volume and market share,” said Arno Antlitz, chief financial officer of the Volkswagen Group, to the Financial Times. Along the way, they expect us to lose 60% of the powertrains available so far.
More and more alliances. Part of the greatest benefits that the industry is getting despite selling fewer vehicles is related to the powerful alliances that are being sewn to make the leap to the electric, connected and more or less autonomous vehicle.
In recent years we have seen how Volkswagen and Ford reached an agreement to share platforms and batteries. Within the Volkswagen Group itself, companies such as Porsche and Audi or Skoda, Seat and Volkswagen itself share platforms and software development (which has also cost them some displeasure).
The PSA Group and FCA (two of the largest manufacturers in the world) brought Stellantis to life. Renault, Nissan and Mitsubishi have been rowing in the same direction for years, although Renault’s latest decisions have strained relations with Nissan. And Toyota, Lexus and Subaru also have a sister model in their first electric car, which, however, is not going well either.
and more expensive. At the same time that the offer is reduced, the prices are also increasing. As we collected in this article, the latest obligations in terms of pollution and safety have made the offer more expensive to unsuspected limits. And it has put smaller cars at risk. The Ford Fiesta or the Volkswagen Polo are good examples of this.
Mass cars, standardized, with SUV aesthetics and larger, or almost testimonial units but with very wide profit margins. The market is polarizing and small vehicles are paying for it. In the case of Mercedes, also vehicles with lower volume but low performance. It is the general trend in the market.
