Electric C and GLC coming in two years
Benz plans to hike starting prices
There’s an electric Mercedes-Benz C-Class coming. The company’s CEO said the new model is expected to arrive in the next two years. Mercedes will also shrink its entry-grade lineup, with its three remaining to move to a brand new platform and come at a higher price.
The new electric C-Class will arrive in 2026, Mercedes-Benz CEO Ola Kallenius said on the company’s second-quarter earnings call (via Autocar). It will arrive along with an electric GLC model, and both will push the model line further upmarket, which is code for “will be more expensive.”
Mercedes will build the vehicles on a new MB.EA platform, and siad that it will be in what the company calls the “core luxury” segment. That’s where the CLE and E-Class models live now.
The Benz starter lineup will shrink to include just the CLA, GLA, and GLB. All three will move to a new platform called MMA, and will start with a new CLA that arrives in 2025. It was previewed at the Munich show last year.
Benz had planned to replace the EVA2 architecture used under the EQS and EQE EVs with a larger version of the new MB.EA platform. Kallenius said that is no longer the case and suggested that the larger variant platform had been canceled.
Prices across the board will climb. Entry-level models will grow in price “significantly” as Mercedes looks to improve profits. The company, like many, has not hit its initial EV targets. “We have to realise that the speed of the transition, it’s almost impossible to foresee how long it will take,” said Kallenius.
