Mercedes-Benz Will Not Go Fully Electric By 2030

Mercedes-Benz has confirmed that the brand will not go fully-electric by 2030 in the global market. This decision comes on the back of slow EV sales growth, thereby moving away from its bullish stance before. 

Mercedes-Benz announced last week that in its fourth quarter (FY23-24), it expects only 50 per cent of its sales to be comprised of EV. This is a significant drop from the rosier outlook that the company had once projected. It also confirmed that only gas and hybrid vehicles will remain a part of the company’s future. 

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Mercedes-Benz will also not transition to an all-EV brand in Europe, where EV sales growth outpaces North America and other regions. Ola Kallenius, CEO, Mercedes-Benz, had told Reuters earlier that it’s not going 100 per cent electric from the whole European market. His comments was the latest from top auto executive level to express such caution. Earlier, Tesla CEO Elon Musk had warned that the company will brace for a significantly slower sales growth in 2024. Rivian and Lucid also expressed concerns over the same stating production will remain more or less flat this year. 

Customers have also increasingly started to shift towards hybrid vehicles, in sight of rising price, charging time, under-developed charging infrastructure, and reliability issues. Geopolitical events and uncertain trade policy, due to the Middle-East conflict, Russia-Ukraine war and other regional crisis have further added significant risk factors to EV production.