End of an era: new E-Class is the last combustion engine model
Things are getting serious at Mercedes-Benz: the new generation of the E-Class will hit the shops in 2023. According to the head of development, Schäfer, it will be the last new model series on an internal combustion engine platform. By 2030 at the latest, only battery-electric vehicles will roll off the production line - at least in Europe. The E-Class has been built since 1993 and has been sold many millions of times.
The new and last generation of the saloon will be presented at the end of the year and will be available from spring 2023. All models from 2024/2025 will already be based on battery drive architectures. In terms of engines, the focus is on fewer variants and new machines will no longer be developed. "We are taking out complexity and significantly reducing the use of resources by only making the adjustments for the remaining units," Markus Schäfer recently explained to Automobilwoche. The engine cooperation with Renault will not be continued. Instead, the intention is to industrialise a global engine with the Chinese manufacturer Geely jointly. The S- and C-Class are also based on the combustion engine platform and will be phased out at the end of the model cycle - before 2030.
In the passenger car sector, Mercedes-Benz is fully committed to battery-electric drives; Schäfer rejects the fuel cell in the passenger car segment - considerable disadvantages are seen in terms of unit costs, energy efficiency and necessary installation space. The fuel cell only makes sense for long-distance trucks. For the truck models, the company is betting on both technologies - hydrogen-powered fuel cells and battery-electric drive.
When it comes to the drive of the future, Daimler Truck is driving on two tracks, as Group CEO Martin Daum explains: "The battery and the hydrogen-based fuel cell are not competing for technologies - it's not an either-or, but a both-and". However, Daimler Truck has no longer been part of the Mercedes-Benz Group since December last year but is listed independently on the stock exchange.
In future, Mercedes-Benz will focus even more on the luxury segments - the A- and B-Class are to be phased out with the current cycles and then discontinued. Mercedes Benz CEO Ola Kallenius had only recently stated that he saw the luxury segment as the key segment for the transition to electric mobility. Therefore, a great deal of focus would be placed on it. This strategy brought the company strong results in the previous year.