US market launch of Mercedes EQC delayed till 2021

Mercedes has postponed the US launch of its EQC by at least one year to 2021. The German carmaking giant says that this “strategic decision” is because it “first wants to meet the growing customer demand for the EQC in Europe”. Meanwhile, BAIC wants to double its stake in Daimler.

US Americans must continue to wait for the market launch of Mercedes’ first representative of the EQ family. In an email to potential US customers who have already expressed interest in the EQC, the German manufacturer writes that a strategic decision had to be made given the great interest in the electric car worldwide. This means that Europe has the lead and the US market has to wait.

The EQC was initially supposed to arrive at US traders in the first quarter of 2020 and be available there for 68,895 US dollars. It is likely that the stricter EU limits, combined with the general battery shortage, will mean that Mercedes will not be able to produce enough vehicles for several markets in the short term, but will first have to concentrate on the European market. For Mercedes, this means that it is lagging behind competitors already present in the American electric car market such as Tesla, BMW, Audi and Jaguar. Nevertheless, Mercedes is no exception in this regard: Volkswagen also wants to concentrate on Europe with the ID.3, and even the US carmaker Ford is likely to focus on the European market with its recently presented Mustang Mach-E.

Meanwhile, Reuters reports that the state-owned Chinese carmaker BAIC intends to double its stake in Daimler to around ten per cent, thus replacing its competitor Geely as the largest shareholder of the German group. The news agency cites two unnamed sources, who have information that BAIC – which has held a five per cent stake in Daimler since this summer and is thus currently the third-largest shareholder – is said to have started to buy further shares in the group on the open market.

autonews.com (EQC), reuters.com (BAIC)