Mercedes Could Abandon EQ Branding As Early As Next Year

The manufacturer will stay the course with adding electric models to its lineup, but they may not be called EQ any more.

By: Andrei Nedelea

Jan 12, 2023 at 3:39pm ET

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Mercedes could drop the EQ designation for its electric models next year, according to a new report citing sources from Germany. The move automaker is said to be doing this as having a separate line of electric models will not be needed since it already has a strong focus on electrification and it plans to go fully-electric by 2030.

Reuters quotes Handelsblatt, a German daily, which in turn cited unnamed company insiders as the source of the information. The decision to give up on EQ was taken after Mercedes accelerated its initial plans for electrification and when it decided to fully commit to making bespoke EVs, not just electric versions of its existing models.

The source quotes a Mercedes spokesperson who responded a question about the EQ brand’s future did admit that how it is used could be changed. He said 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," said the spokesperson.”

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The EQ brand debuted in 2019 with the EQC electric SUV, which built on the same platform as the GLC model. Then Mercedes launched several more EQ-badged vehicles that were based on an existing ICE vehicle before it unveiled the EQS, its first bespoke EV.

Now the manufacturer wants to have four models built on the same EVA platform, the EQE and EQS with sedan and SUV bodies. Next it plans to have another four models built on a new ‘entry luxury’ platform called MMA - the first of these will debut in 2024 and it will be a CLA-sized electric sedan we’ve already seen under camouflage in spy photos.