Mercedes-Benz was forced to become a price butcher: the electric EQ series was exposed to 400,000 and no one bought it, and a fire burned word of mouth

130,000, can you mention Mercedes-Benz?

This incident has been staged one after another across the country.

Since last year, for every three cars sold by Mercedes-Benz in the world, one has been bought by China's big brother. From January to June this year, Mercedes-Benz's global sales were 1,019,200 units, a year-on-year increase of 5%, and the Chinese market was 377,200 units, a year-on-year increase of 6%.

But under the growth, the value of Mercedes-Benz has fallen again and again.

For example, Mercedes-Benz A has fallen from 300,000 all the way to 130,000 to be able to win, a sharp drop of 170,000.

How dismal are the sales of the EQ series, which is the first generation of Mercedes-Benz's electrified products?

According to the data of the passenger association, in the first eight months of this year, the cumulative sales of Mercedes-Benz EQ series electric vehicles were less than 15,000 units. This number is currently less than NIO's sales in one month.

Among them, EQA sold 2,583 units, EQB sold 4,353 units, and EQC sold a total of 167 units in 8 months, so it began to cut prices wildly.

In the past, the Mercedes-Benz EQE, which had a guide price of 478,000-534,300 yuan, was really unattainable, and the price of the Mercedes-Benz EQE had dropped to more than 300,000 yuan, plummeting by about 220,000 yuan.

Mercedes-Benz EQC plummeted by 400,000.

EQB prices have almost halved. 

Mercedes-Benz has forced itself to become a "price butcher", what does it mean?

01.

When luxury cars begin to "drop prices":

Mercedes-Benz plummeted, and BMW was cut in half

In the context of comprehensive electrification transformation, many domestic joint venture models are in deep trouble, and can only slow down the rate of fall through layoffs.

In August, for example, Nissan's sales in China fell 29.36% year-on-year, Honda fell 25.1%, and even Toyota fell 6.6%.

According to data released by the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, from January to August this year, the overall share of Japanese cars in the Chinese market was only 14.5%.

The wave of layoffs and factory closures has spread among Japanese automakers, and GAC Mitsubishi has even stopped production.

Compared with the three Japanese brothers, Mercedes-Benz has a much better time in China, relying on the line of defense of luxury brands, Mercedes-Benz China completed sales of more than 370,000 vehicles in the first half of this year, an increase of 6% year-on-year.

It's just that Mercedes-Benz has paid a lot of price in order to achieve this sales result.

In 2019, as the first domestic luxury pure electric model launched by Mercedes-Benz in the Chinese market, and the first pure electric model to be domestically launched among the three major luxury brands of BBA, Mercedes-Benz EQC has played the label of "electric + luxury".

The price at that time was 620,000.

However, EQC's performance after listing was extremely dismal, and its reputation was not satisfactory.

Now the car has fallen from 620,000 all the way to more than 200,000, a drop of 400,000.

This year's Double 11, Mercedes-Benz EQC also had an electric vehicle fire accident, the fire spread rapidly, affecting BYD and Haval and other vehicles parked next to it, thick smoke billowing and flames.

Mercedes-Benz C-class, as the main model of the family, can be said to have given up its dignity in order to get good sales, and now the price of new cars on the market has dropped from nearly 310,000 to 257,000.

02.

Who delayed Mercedes-Benz to make electric cars?

Many of the top fuel vehicle brands in the past have always been slow to move in the face of electric vehicles.

In fact, it is not difficult to understand the reasons, first, the giants are slow to turn around, and second, no one is carrying out reforms when they are comfortable.

But the backwardness of Mercedes-Benz electric vehicles has nothing to do with the starting time.

As early as more than 10 years ago, Mercedes-Benz first acquired a 9.1% stake in Tesla for $50 million, and then cooperated with BYD to establish a joint venture with a 50:50 share ratio to create a high-end electric brand "Denza".

Let's take a look at the timeline:

NIO was born in 2014, Li was born in 2015, and Xpeng only launched its first car in 2016, but DENZA was already established in 2010.

According to the agreement between BYD and Daimler, Denza Auto will be provided by BYD, the "father", and Daimler, the "mother", will be responsible for the production and manufacturing of the whole vehicle.

And he didn't start from the king of dicks, and confidently typed a few words directly on the PPT at the press conference: "Only provide new energy luxury cars!"

It is understood that since the establishment of the brand, BYD and Daimler have increased their capital to Denza Auto dozens of times.

In 2012, it received a capital increase of 900 million, in 2013 it received a capital increase of 860 million, in 2017 it received a capital increase of 1 billion, and in 2018 it received a capital increase of 800 million...

Lack of qualifications, there is China's earliest new energy boss BYD to open the way.

When there is a lack of technology and encounters a project problem that is difficult to overcome, Daimler will send technical experts from the R&D department in Beijing or even from the German headquarters to solve the problem, and will invite a third-party technical team from Germany to join the solution.

But Denza has made a big joke in China.

The starting price of the Denza 300, which was launched in 2014, was not recognized by consumers with a starting price of 369,000 yuan, and the annual sales volume was around 2,000 units. The Denza 500 is indeed out of the circle, and it was complained by netizens as "the ugliest electric car in history".

Denza Auto has several characteristics of poor appearance, poor technology and unintelligent technology, coupled with an arrogant pricing of 300,000 yuan, and finally suffered in sales.

In the past seven years, Denza has sold a total of 20,000 cars with great difficulty, with a loss of more than 5.22 billion. Roughly calculated, for every car sold by Denza, the company lost nearly 220,000 yuan.

Sure enough, at the end of last year, Daimler transferred a large part of its shares to BYD, and the equity ratio was 1:1 in the past, but now it is 1:9.

Basically gave up custody of this terrible child.

In addition to Denza, under the huge discounts, the sales of Mercedes-Benz new energy EQ series still have not improved greatly.

In 2022, Mercedes-Benz sold a total of 753,900 vehicles in China, a year-on-year increase of 2.61%. There are currently 8 models of the Mercedes-Benz EQ series on sale, but in 2022, the cumulative sales of Mercedes-Benz EQ series pure electric models will only be 14,800 units.

In March this year, the Mercedes-Benz EQC even sold only 68 units.

03.

The competition of high-end + intelligent driving,

It's getting more and more interesting

Having said that, although Mercedes-Benz has reduced its price, its ability to make money is still resistant.

Mercedes-Benz's cumulative global sales in the first half of this year were 1,019,200 units, second only to BMW among the three BBAs, but in terms of revenue, Mercedes-Benz is the most profitable in BBA.

Mercedes-Benz Group's revenue was 75.757 billion euros, up 6% year-on-year, and net profit was 10.492 billion euros, up 7% year-on-year.

Among the three car companies, Mercedes-Benz is the only one that has achieved both revenue and net profit growth.

Mercedes-Benz, which makes money, is most worried about electric vehicles.

The global sales of pure electric passenger car models were 102,600 units, a year-on-year increase of 121%, but the proportion was only 10.06%.

In other words, of the more than one million cars sold by Mercedes-Benz, pure electric vehicles account for only one-tenth. In China, Mercedes-Benz's largest car market, there is no sales volume due to poor sales of electric vehicles.

In 2021, Mercedes-Benz proposed an "all-electric" strategy, investing more than 40 billion euros in nine years, with the goal of achieving 50% of sales of pure electric and plug-in hybrid models by 2025, and each newly released model will launch a pure electric version.

In the following two years, Mercedes-Benz EQ series new cars were launched one after another, and in order to adapt to the rapid iteration of pure electric vehicles, Mercedes-Benz gradually abandoned the traditional strategy of the era of fuel vehicles, from "oil to electricity" to "true pure electric".

Even in the first half of the year, Kang Linsong, chairman of the board of directors of Mercedes-Benz Group, visited China many times, and brought dozens of senior executives to learn from each other during the Shanghai Auto Show.

In public communication, electrification is always the focus of his mouth, and he hardly talks about gasoline vehicles anymore.

He also said that China is the second home of Mercedes-Benz.

But at this year's shareholders' meeting, Kang Linsong announced that the company's electric vehicle development plan will be delayed to a certain extent: the goal of achieving 50% of electric vehicle sales in 2025 will be achieved in 2026.

But the problem is that Mercedes-Benz does not yet have an electric model that can compete with the Model 3 or the BYD Dynasty series.

The reason why luxury brands are called luxury brands is not because the products they launch are expensive enough, but because of decades or even hundreds of years of historical accumulation and technological accumulation, as well as very outstanding technological innovation, consumers have given these brands luxury attributes.

If you plan to spend five or six hundred thousand yuan to buy an SUV, you must have considered Mercedes-Benz that highlights the luxury attributes, but if it is a Mercedes-Benz new energy SUV of five or six hundred thousand yuan that appears in front of you, you may hesitate for three points.

Is it electrification that makes luxury meaningless?

No, it comes down to Mercedes not being extreme. First, there are too many competitors in this price range, and second, Mercedes-Benz New Energy does not have much brand premium.

The automotive industry is in an era of technology-driven change, and at this time, everyone is involved in technological innovation and product innovation.

Luxury brands talk about luxury at every turn, obviously overestimating themselves and underestimating their opponents.

The picture comes from the Internet, please contact to delete the infringement