The new Mercedes-Benz boss Ola Kallenius takes into consideration dropping out some models from the line-up because of low volume sales. Mercedes-Benz X-Class will go out of production but the rumours speaks also about Mercedes-Benz S-Class Coupe/Cabrio, Mercedes-Benz CLS/AMG GT-door.
Mercedes-Benz is still No. 1 luxury automaker in the world with 2,339,562 units sold in 2019. But some models does not sell as expected and the new boss Ola Kallenius want to stop some of them.
Kallenius has mentioned very quickly Mercedes S-Class Coupe and S-Class Cabrio which will not receive successors.
Mercedes has never published the sales figures for every version of S-Class. The german luxury carmaker has revealed only total sales for the S-Class family which include five versions: S-Class sedan long and short, coupe, cabrio, Maybach sedan.
It seems that coupe and cabrio versions are not selling very well despite the fact the coupe luxury market is still very strong with a lot of newcomers including the comeback of BMW with the 8 Series Coupe, Aston Martin DB11, Bentley Continental GT.
While the Mercedes S-Class Cabrio was discontinued in the last 50 years, the S-Class Coupe is an icon. Five generations S-Class Coupe were built since 1981 starting with the W126 and followed by C140, C215, C216 and C217.
In the same time electrification and self-driving development costs affects profits. Mercedes-Benz will launch next year the new EQS which is in fact an electrified S-Class based on a dedicated platform.
Another model which will go out of production without having a successor is the Mercedes-Benz X-Class.
Ola Kallenius has decided to stop the Mercedes-Benz Pick-up because of poor sales. Only 16,700 X-Class were sold in Europe, Australia and South Africa last year. The X-Class is too expensive to compete with utility pick-ups, is not enough practical for the lifestyle buyers and is too small for USA market.
Ola Kallenius has mentioned also the Mercedes-Benz CLS and the Mercedes-AMG GT 4-door, both which are relatively new.
The CLS has invented the four door coupe segment in 2004 and just arrived at the third generation.
The GT 4-door was also introduced in 2018 as an own AMG model but is very close to the CLS.
AMG strategy was to have an own model line-up to compete with Porsche models but GT-4 Door ended in a direct competition with CLS, because both have some engine in common.
Kallenius suggest that both models can be replaced by a single electrified model.
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