With the debut of its new GLE Coupe, Mercedes Benz is betting that 2015 will be the year of the SUV.
The car was unveiled in Detroit on Sunday (January 11), the eve of the North American International Auto Show in Detroit.
Daimler AG Chief Executive Officer Dieter Zetsche said the automaker’s Mercedes luxury brand plans four new or redesigned sport utility vehicles this year, expanding its offerings in one of the fastest growing segments in the luxury vehicle market.
“In this market, Mercedes will launch lots of great new products, namely many SUVs, four altogether. So we are very bullish for 2015. U.S. has been the biggest market for us worldwide and will be a very important market in 2015 again,” Zetsche said.
Mercedes will also expand to 80 from 75 the number of cars and SUVs with all-wheel drive.
Automakers reported strong December U.S. sales and after a slump in 2006, sales have rebounded as has the economy.
Edmunds.com executive editor Ed Hellwig, explained that going into 2015, falling oil prices will drive consumers back to SUVs and large vehicles.
“People feel comfortable in them. They see them as more practical, more useful and if they can afford to drive something bigger, more spacious, they’ll do that. So as oil prices drop they automatically go back to what they’re comfortable with. So I think as long as prices stay low the potential for SUVs and trucks is probably better than what we’ve seen in several years so that could be a big big segment come 2015 and 2016.”
Hellwig says that after a fruitful year, he expects luxury brands like Mercedes and BMW to look for new areas where they can expand and move brands into segments where they haven’t been before.
Ironically, for many of these automakers, that space is in the hybrid or electrified car market.
BMW, the top-selling luxury brand in the United States, sold 339,738 vehicles in the U.S. market last year, a 9.8 percent jump from 2013. BMW’s sales growth outpaced the overall U.S. auto market’s 5.9 percent increase. Daimler AG’s
Mercedes-Benz brand showed an increase of 5.7 percent to 330,391 vehicles.
Ian Robertson, a member of BMW’s Board in North America says the company is going into 2015 with a strong foothold in gas-fueled engine vehicles and has high hopes for the lightweight zero emissions i-series as well.
“We bring, I think, good momentum into this year but I think the market this year will be probably single digit growth so a little bit lower. We’ve got a lot of exciting products. We’ve got three new 6 series behind us. The U.S. is the largest market for these cars. The convertible, around 60 odd percent of all those that we sell are in the United States so I think that will be a very strong product during the year. We of course had the first full year on the i3 and i8, our innovative zero emission vehicles, and they I think will see more momentum as we come into this year.”
Electric car purchases badly lag sales of gas-powered vehicles, yet Hellwig said that as the show opens on Monday (January 12), the other top trend he expects to see is the “re-emergence of hybrids being an important aspect of automakers lineups. You have some on the low end like the Chevy Volt and the Hyundai Sonata and then they even have higher end ones like the Acura NSX and Mercedes getting into it. So I think it’s just kind of reintroducing a lot of people to the fact that hybrids are a big part of their lineups and putting them into mainstream models.”
General Motors Co will kick things off with the unveiling of its next-generationChevrolet Volt plug-in hybrid and is expected to restate a commitment to build an affordable long-range electric car.
Electric cars and plug-ins like the Volt account for less than 1 percent of the global vehicle market. GM’s current Volt has sold well below initial company projections. The company doesn’t disclose profits by model line. Last year, U.S. sales of the Volt fell almost 19 percent to fewer than 19,000 vehicles.
Reuters