Mercedes and Volkswagen have struggled with their EV-specific model lines while Hyundai has succeeded
Our spy shots of the next-generation Mercedes-Benz E-Class suggest that what’s going to happen next with that car is what happened with the GLC over the summer: an end to the weird, soap bar-looking EQ electric models and an alignment with the combustion models.
“If you were told this was the next-gen combustion GLC, you would say ‘yes, it’s the next logical step: it looks like a GLC’,” boss Ola Källenius said of Mercedes’ new electric SUV last month. And I think it’s now safe to assume that Mercedes’ next E-Class-sized electric executive saloon will be very much integrated into the range as an identifiable E-Class variant too.
Internal documents apparently describe the EQE replacement as having an “iconic E-Class three-box design”, with a “very status-oriented wheelbase offering maximum space and comfort”. In other words, it will be a big Merc.
This strikes me as an inherently sensible move. Mercedes’ ultra-streamlined EQ EVs haven’t achieved the same resonance as its traditional-looking ICE cars. The E-Class, like the S-Class and to a lesser extent the SUVs, have such a strong reputation that they would be barmy not to tap into it.
In EQ, Mercedes created a new brand that didn’t outwardly signal the values that existing models had spent – by individual model line – decades establishing. The first unibody Ponton-series Mercedes, whose lineage can be drawn directly to the modern E-Class, arrived in 1953. Why would one decide that reputation was no longer important?
Reintegrating an electric executive saloon back into the traditional fold makes particular sense to me, then: it’s the E-Class you’ve known and respected all your life but now it offers the option of a zero-emissions powertrain. Smart.
Stellantis likes doing the same, because it means it can build one model and be flexible about the proportion of powertrains that it fits: it views electric propulsion as just an alternative to a petrol or diesel or hybrid system, figuring that what you actually want is a Peugeot 208 or a Vauxhall Astra, then secondarily you’re just choosing how best to power it.
And if more people want EVs, fine: the factories just build fewer petrol ones, rather than having entire models at the mercy of EV adoption rates. I’d think that, by now, we would see the start of consensus on what works best for car makers when it comes to this (electric-only and new brands excepted, of course) and that for legacy manufacturers (for want of a better phrase for them), giving customers the cars they know and like, just with differing levels of electrification, would be the answer.
Yet not everybody is making a success of it this way. The Renault 5 has been reborn as an EV only and it seems to be doing just fine for itself. Some of Hyundai’s EVs wear the Ioniq tag rather than being electric variants of pre-existing models.
And even within the big manufacturer groups there isn’t outright consensus: Skoda is continuing to offer unique EV models happily, whereas Volkswagen is rowing back on its ID brand towards names that we already know and love. At some point surely we will call the forthcoming ID Polo just the Polo?
So why is it that some new EV sub-brands work and some don’t? Can one identify why, specifically, it’s better in some cases to have a spin-off EV badge but in others it’s better to integrate EV models into the conventional lineup? Why does an Ioniq work when an EQ doesn’t?
I’m still trying to find a reason beyond perception, or vibes. Skoda doesn’t have reputational skin in compact crossovers, so it can have separate EV and ICE models with differing names and it makes no difference. Yet if it were to introduce an electric family saloon/ estate, wouldn’t one want it to be an Octavia?
Take a big electric Kia SUV: I couldn’t care less what it’s called; it’s not like they’ve had one for aeons. But if Mercedes is to give us an electric luxury saloon, I’d still like it to be an S-Class.
Which brings me to BMW: the i4 is kinda pitched as a battery-powered 3 Series, yet the upcoming 3 Series-sized Neue Klasse electric car is going to be called the i3, even though we recently had a very different one of those, and even though the 3 Series has decades of reputation behind it. Is that fine? It sort of feels fine to me. What do your vibes say?
