As brand completes electric transition, EQ no longer needed
With next-gen of compacts, Mercedes will have EVs in all segments
Just a couple of years after introducing the EQ brand name, Mercedes-Benz is planning to drop it. That’s because by then the brand’s focus on electrics will make it pointless, says a new report from Germany.
The report comes from German daily Handelsblatt. It cited sources familiar with the matter as saying the EQ badge could be gone as soon as next year. That’s when the company’s next generation of compacts will start to arrive.
It’s a simple reason. By that point enough of its cars will be electric that the difference won’t matter. Mercedes won’t need to highlight them anymore. The Mercedes-EQ name arrived on the EQC electric SUV in 2019 and has since been used on the EQS electric sedan and crossover and the EQE.
Mercedes-Benz wouldn’t confirm the report. A spokesperson for the brand told Reuters that “with the goal of our parent brand Mercedes-Benz becoming fully electric by the end of the decade, we will adapt the positioning of the vehicles and thus also the use of the brand in line with the times, but it is too early for details on this at the moment.”
It would make EQ one of the shortest-lived sub-brands in the auto world. But if accurate, it would also make it one of the most successful. As the sub-brand that brought the main brand through its transition to electrification.
