The demand for the Mercedes-Benz EQE and EQS electric cars has proven much worse in China than the automaker expected, forcing the local branch to sell its inventory at uncomfortable discounts.
The EQE is currently selling starting from 478,000 Chinese Yuan (around $67,000), a discount of 50,000 CNY (~7,000 USD) from the original price. In turn, the luxurious EQS starts as low as 976,000 CNY ($137,000) – a whopping 234,000 CNY (nearly 33,000 USD) below the launch price.
For the customers who already bought theirs and feel cheated, the company promises to pay out subsidies. The compensations will only be made to those who purchased an EQE or an EQS, though: the EQA, EQB and EQC crossovers sold in China have also gone down in price lately, but Mercedes is apparently unwilling to offer any benefits to the early buyers of these models.
Making matters worse is the fact that the company had barely managed to sell 100 EQS units in some months. According to the analysts, the slanted roof design could be one of the reasons: V.I.P. customers in the country tend to regard the sloped roofline as a design drawback.
Overall, Mercedes-Benz managed to move around 8,800 EVs in China in January-July 2022. To put things in perspective, BYD Group found buyers for 220,000 EVs in October alone. Commenting on the disastrous launch, the automaker said it would need to reconsider the positioning of their vehicles in the country from the ground up.