Are you referring to the CLA replacement or electric?
Mercedes’ strategy update, “The Economics of Desire”, was named this week by Mercedes. The three-pointed star, which is a three-pointed star, will be focusing more on larger and more expensive models to the exclusion of its entry-level offerings. There will be four compact cars in the new “Entry Luxury” category, down from seven. It is expected that less than 25% of the total investment will be reserved by the German marque.
Gorden Wagener, chief designer of the new entry level models teased one of them during the presentation. We had to snap a picture. The mysterious car would be “the most advanced, technologically advanced car with all digital inside,” he said. It’s truly a luxury car in this segment, I can assure you.”
Okay, so what exactly are you looking at? It appears to be a sleek sedan which could be the next-generation CLA. Mercedes has stated that it will reduce the number of compact cars and it may merge the A-Class Sedan with the CLA into one model. Although the CLA shooting brake isn’t looking promising, we could speculate about it.
The model is expected to ride on the MMA platform, which was already announced and will debut in 2024. It will be an electric-first architecture, but not exclusive. The engineers at Mercedes are creating the hardware primarily to support EVs, but will also make compromises for ICE models. This is the exact opposite strategy for the EQA and EQB crossovers, as all three electric vehicles are derived from ICE platforms.
The Vision HTMLXXX concept car has taught us a lot. This means that range anxiety in small vehicles should be eliminated. In an interview with Motor1.com, Markus Schafer, Mercedes-Benz Chief Technology Officer, stated that EVs would still be more costly than ICEs and that cost parity will not be possible in the foreseeable future.