In China, when people talk about station wagons, they often describe them as feelings. Indeed, with the development of SUV models in recent years, the position of the station wagon is like a compromise product sandwiched in the middle, and the previously commendable car driving control, SUV sense of space, etc., have gradually lost their absolute advantage in the rapid iteration of technology. This change is also directly reflected in the market performance, in terms of the European automobile market, the home of the crock pot, the sales of medium-sized station wagons have shown a significant downward trend since 2018.
In the face of the sluggish sales volume of the wagon market and the impact of electrification, many car companies have made deployment plans for the station wagon in advance. For example, Volvo said that it will not give up the station wagon in the future, and it will keep pace with the times to create a more fashionable and elegant model, in contrast, Mercedes-Benz is a bit "not nostalgic for the past", directly saying that it will stop supplying station wagons to the market in 2030, and the new generation of Mercedes-Benz E-class that will be released in 2030 will naturally no longer be equipped with "crock pot" models. The first step in cutting off its station wagon product line is to start from the Mercedes-Benz CLA Shooting Brake, which may officially wave goodbye to us in 2025.
It is reported that the reason why Mercedes-Benz decisively abandoned the station wagon is mainly to prepare for the electrification transformation by streamlining the existing product line, and at the same time free up more funds and energy to invest in the research and development and expansion of electric vehicles. And in order to make up for the former Mercedes-Benz crock pot customers, Mercedes-Benz plans to launch a high-performance version of the car or SUV with the same elegant attributes of the crock pot in the future.
Mercedes-Benz's decision to the station wagon seems to be "cruel", but it is also a helpless move. Perhaps it is naturally wrong, Mercedes-Benz's crock pots are mostly inferior to BMW and Audi cans in terms of sales performance or styling elegance, and only the Mercedes-Benz CLS hunting version is struggling to support the table.
Volvo and Mercedes-Benz announced their final decision on the crock pot before and after, which was only the first shot of the "change" of the station wagon. When Volkswagen and Audi announced the suspension of crock pots, the crock pot era was officially closed.