Previously, the company already admitted that the goals for the electrification of the brand’s products turned out to be “overly ambitious.”
Automakers around the world have seen demand for electric vehicles slow, including Mercedes-Benz. As we reported earlier, this led to the fact that the management of the German company had to rewrite the plan for the production of “green” cars. It is noted that Mercedes will not be able to fully switch to electric trains by 2030, even in Europe (the corresponding strategy was announced in 2021).
Pictured: Mercedes-Benz logo
Mercedes-Benz CEO Ola Källenius, during a recent interview with the German publication Wirtschaftswoche, stated that that cars with internal combustion engines “will last until the 2030s” (no more precise date yet). At the same time, such motors must meet increasingly stringent requirements, and large-scale investments are required for corresponding modernization.
In the photo: the current flagship Mercedes-Benz S-Class
Ola Källenius emphasized that the company is again investing more money in the development of internal combustion engines. According to him, this year alone the brand with the “three-pointed star” will spend 14 billion euros on modernizing its passenger car division. The head of Mercedes-Benz emphasized that these funds will be used for modern “fuel combustion technologies”, as well as for electrification and digitalization. How much of the total amount the company will spend on internal combustion engines is not specified, but, according to him, “the amount is greater than previously planned.”
In addition, Ola Källenius spoke about the planned update of the brand's flagship, the Mercedes-Benz S-Class, mid-life cycle, which is scheduled for 2026. Let us remind you that the current seventh generation model (with the factory index W223) was presented in the fall of 2020. By the way, last week the designer of Kolesa.ru showed what the restyled S-Class might look like.
The head of Mercedes-Benz explained that the company has invested in updating the S-Class with a new engine internal combustion “much more money than it usually spends on restyling.” It is expected that in the future there will be even more hybrid versions in the families of future models of the brand.
Render of the updated Mercedes-Benz S-Class
It is noted that the manufacturer intends to bring its traditional power units to the “highest technological level.” Ola Källenius added that if the company had not invested significant sums in internal combustion engines now, it would have stopped producing them in 2027-2028, since they would not have been able to meet the required emission standards.
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The company is not abandoning its “green” plans and projects, but some deadlines are being shifted. So, Mercedes-Benz has now announced a goal according to which, by the end of the decade, half of the deliveries will have to be hybrids and electric vehicles (previously it was assumed that this would happen by 2025). In addition, the manufacturer is not abandoning the construction of eight gigafactories for the production of batteries, although it notes that they will begin operating “a little later.” The project to develop a new platform for future electric vehicles of the EQ line remains in force.
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