Marko Hanželic
Raise your hand if you expected this. Following BMW's lead, Mercedes plans to sell the next-generation S-Class with internal combustion engines and electric powertrains. This effectively means that EQS will disappear after one generation, but not before a mid-cycle revamp. The current S-Class will also receive a facelift before moving on to the next model generation.
In an interview with Autocar, Mercedes CEO Ola Källenius made an important announcement: "In the future, two S-classes will be available - petrol and electric." outside as well as inside. But while the BMW 7 Series and i7 share the same platform, that apparently won't be the case for the S-Class, according to undisclosed sources cited by the British magazine.
The electric S-Class is expected to be based on the MB.EA Large architecture, while the internal combustion engine model will be based on an updated iteration of the current MRA hardware solution. At the end of June, Källenius refuted rumors about the termination of the MB.EA platform, saying that its development "is proceeding at a high speed". In a new interview with Autocar, he reaffirmed this: "MB.EA Large is part of our plan for the future." In mid-May, the German publication Handelsblatt announced that the architecture of the next generation of electric vehicles had been abandoned.
The existing petrol and electric flagships are expected to be replaced by the unified S-Class around 2030. The year 2024, however, has not been kind to these two cars. In the first quarter, deliveries of the S-Class fell by almost 37%. Figures for the second quarter have not been disclosed, but we do know that combined sales of the S-Class, EQS, EQS SUV and GLS fell 23% in the second quarter. Due to lower demand, production of the S-Class is limited to a single shift, which one supplier has already described as a 'disaster'.
