Mercedes is dropping ‘EQ’ named cars AND super-streamlined styling

At the recent Consumer Electronics Show, TopGear.com grabbed a chat with Mercedes’ VP of car engineering - and ex-boss of electric vehicle platforms - Christoph Starzynski. He’s a busy chap, as Mercedes looks to be all-electric by the end of the decade, and fight back against the likes of Tesla, Lucid, and Chinese EVs galore.

We quizzed him over rumours the EQS and EQE were struggling because the super low-drag styling was polarising to ‘traditional’ Benz customers, who want something more... stately.

“We have had that comment, and we are taking this comment seriously,” Christoph confirmed. “Looking at the [design] language in the Concept CLA, and maybe looking a little bit more in the future, I think we can definitely see there's going to be adoptions to that.”

The Concept CLA, you’ll have noticed, doesn’t look quite as pebble-y as the EQS. There’s more of a bonnet and a boot to it. It also has something we recognise as a grille.

Apparently, that makes it less divisive to look at, with little penalty in drag (and range). Does that mean Mercedes is putting the brakes on teardrop styling? Christoph doesn’t confirm or deny it. “This is basically the first glimpse of what you can expect in the future from Mercedes-Benz.”

But what about the name? If it’s all-electric, why is it not called ‘Concept EQ CLA’?

“No, it's going to be a ‘C’. ‘EQ’ is for us a very strong brand for electric technology, so we will definitely maintain it. Now the question is nomenclature. How do you name the cars? At the end of the day, our ultimate goal is to go fully electric. So at the end of the day, the zipper will close and the nomenclature will happen naturally.”

The ‘zipper’ analogy means on the one side of the Mercedes family, there’s stuff like the C, E, G, and S class, and on the opposite side, the EQC, EQE, and EQS. But once all of the trad cars are EV, they won’t need ‘EQ’ names to differentiate themselves. He also hinted the first car to make the badging switch will be the electric version of the G Class… which was previewed by a concept called ‘EQG’. Got that?

We asked Christoph if he’s been happy with the rollout of the ‘EQ’ electric brand. What are we to make of scattered reports there’s been lukewarm customer desire for the low-drag luxury saloons?

“It's a question of in which region are we talking,” he said. “If you talk for example, the US, it's actually a very positive development. I mean there were early adopters here on the EV side, who were basically going into a different brand because they didn't have an electric Mercedes in the segment. We contracted a lot of customers back to our brand. This is a very positive sign.”

What about Europe, and China?

“We're quite happy also in Europe, we see that BEV [battery electric vehicles] overall is going up. There is a different picture in China: basically, the electric mobility, especially in the upper segment – E and S Class – is very, very small market share. You have to be patient. The willingness in China to transform to electric vehicles at this segment is right now not to the desire we wanted to have.”

China matters to Mercedes massively. In 2022 over a third of total worldwide Mercedes sales were racked up in China, with a particular penchant among Chinese buyers for high-profit Maybach models.

However, Christoph was quick to note that although Chinese demand for electric luxo-barges is lower than hoped, worldwide the E and S Class still outsell their nearest competition, calling it a “glass half-empty, half-full story in China".

“I think for the rest it's actually pretty optimistic. I mean Germans have a tendency… overall, we are not the most optimistic people!”