Mercedes-Benz EQS “10 years too early” – Wagener
Automotive history is littered with vehicles deemed ‘ahead of their time’ that were not sales successes. The Edsel, the NSU Ro 80, the Fisker Karma – you name it. We may now have another addition to the list, and the admission comes from the design boss himself.
Mercedes-Benz chief design officer Gorden Wagener has conceded to Autocar that the EQS sedan may have been “10 years too early” for its radical styling to be well-accepted, and that the EV luxo-barge suffered from being compared with the S-Class.
“It’s a very, very progressive car and, of course, it was not originally designed as a chauffeur limousine. That was not the intention. Many people in this class expect a long hood (bonnet) and status from a chauffeur car, and the EQS is different there. It’s a completely different car. Maybe we should have marketed it differently, more like a futuristic CLS, S-Class Coupe or something like that,” he said.
Born in 2021 (and landing in Malaysia in 2022) as the flagship of Mercedes’ new EV range, the EQS never sold as well as its ICE-powered counterpart, the S-Class. Realising that this could be because of how it looked, the carmaker facelifted the EQS in April 2024 (above), giving it a more traditional-looking grille and a three-pointed-star bonnet ornament.
Which apparently didn’t help much, because Autocar reported only four months later that the EQS would be no more in the next generation. In its stead will be ICE and EV versions of the S-Class. Yup, two propulsion methods, one model. The S-Class EV could get a solid-state battery; expect something like 1,000 km of range.
What are your thoughts? Do you think a luxury sedan should be more conservatively-styled, or are you open to future-forward, avant-garde designs?
2024 Mercedes-Benz EQS facelift
