Mercedes Benz announced its sales of PHEV to be 160K units during 2020, equaling a YoY growth of 228%, and had sold 80K units during the fourth quarter of the year, which has conformed to the 2020 threshold of carbon emission from the EU, and the company is now exempt from penalties or purchasing carbon rights from other automotive manufacturers.
The 2020 threshold of carbon emission from the EU is like an inhibition for European automotive manufacturers that constantly troubled the latter, though it is also the primary force in accelerating electrification for a lot of manufacturers. Benz can now finally lay back and relax.
Despite the unremarkable sales of BEV models of EQC and EQV, Benz had finished the turbulent year with an excellent total sales of 160K units of PHEVs in the global market.
The 160K units of PHEVs account for 7.4% of the existing total sales of new vehicles for Mercedes Benz, and the figure was merely 2% back in 2019. Among these, 115K units were PHEVs, and BEV model EQC occupied approximately 20K units, with roughly 1,700 units of electric trucks, and 27K units of electric Smart.
▲ The electric vehicles of Benz have an excellent prospect judging by the sales of 20K units for the company’s EQC model.
(Source: captured by TechNews)
Benz had sold 2.5 million units of vehicles for the entire year, and the ratio of PHEVs is expected to substantially increase from 7% in 2020 to 13% alongside the launch of the new EQ series in 2021. Assuming that the overall market remains unchanged, the sales of PHEVs of the company may arrive at 320K units.
Even with a deterioration of 7.5% in the annual sales under the impact from the pandemic, Benz managed to sell over 2 million units of vehicles, which was primarily driven by the 11.7% growth from the Chinese market, where 204K units of PHEVs were sold that was slightly behind that of the European market at 236K units. The Chinese market may surpass the European market, and become the primary source of income for Benz, should the company progress in the Chinese market of high-end electric vehicles.
Despite trailing progress compared to Volkswagen, Benz possesses a vigorous intensity in the PHEV market, which facilitated the conformation of the ever rigorous emission standard in 2020 from the EU. According to internal calculation, Benz will not experience any difficulties in adhering to the carbon emission for 2021.
In other words, Benz not only achieves an annual sales of 2 million units of vehicles, but is also one of the few European automotive manufacturers that is exempt from paying carbon tax, which saves the company hundreds of millions of euros. Compared to manufacturers who are paying carbon tax on one hand, and implementing sizeable investment in electric vehicles on the other, Benz is maintaining profit and gradually constructing the layout of electric vehicles with ease.
Benz is expected to launch multiple models of BEVs during 2021, including the anticipated flagships of EQS and EQE, as well as EQA and EQB that underwent transformation from gas to electricity, for which the four models have covered 1/3 of existing models of the company. Benz will also continue to release the PHEV version of C-class and S-class in order to prepare itself in the electric vehicle market that gets increasingly severe.
To ensure its success, the company will also have to obtain enough batteries.
(Cover photo source: Daimler)