Mercedes EQA rumoured to launch in March

Mercedes-Benz is planning a tight schedule for the market launch of the electric models EQA and EQS, according to a media report. While the electric compact car is to be delivered as early as March, August is reportedly scheduled for the first handover to customers for the electric flagship vehicle.

According to a document that Business Insider has now published, the EQA, whose world premiere is imminent (20 January, 11 a.m. CET), will be available for order from 4 February and will be launched in March. For the EQS, orders are scheduled to start on 27 April, with deliveries scheduled to begin in August.

The document titled “Overview of planned sales releases and market launches in 2021” also lists five other combustion engine series, with the new C-Class with the internal designation W/S 206 also expected to play an important role in Mercedes’ plug-in hybrid sales later on. Here, according to the document, the market launch is planned for June.

According to the report, however, the new edition of the SL series planned for the fourth quarter could also receive a plug-in hybrid in the future. According to the document, the large roadster will have a drive train in which the electric motor is installed in the P3 position – i.e. not between the combustion engine and the gearbox, but behind the gearbox. Among other things, this should improve weight distribution.

The document does not contain any information on the other electric models that the Daimler subsidiary plans to show this year at least. These include the EQA sister model EQB, of which only thinly camouflaged prototypes were recently photographed, and the EQE as an electric E-Class counterpart. This model is to be built on the same platform as the EQS. SUV models are also planned for both model series, which have so far been referred to simply as the EQS SUV and EQE SUV.

Mercedes-Benz Cars sold over 160,000 BEVs and PHEVs in 2020, but the majority of these were plug-in hybrids. Around 20,000 units of the EQC were sold, around 1,700 vehicles of the EQV and around 27,000 Smart EQ. The share of “xEVs” (as Mercedes calls BEVs and PHEVs) in total Mercedes-Benz Cars sales rose to 7.4 per cent. In 2019, this figure was just two per cent.

With reporting by Sebastian Schaal, Germany.

businessinsider.de (in German)