The boxy beast is back at it again, and seemingly its diverse popularity is yet to fizzle out. The Mercedes G-wagon is one of the boxy SUV heavyweights, along with the likes of the Land Rover Defender and the Jeep Wrangler. However, the Mercedes sets itself apart from the rest by keeping true to its badge. In true Mercedes fashion, it offers by far the most luxury out of the three and that USP seems to be working for them, as in 2021 they hit a new sales record.
A New Sales Record
Despite the pitfalls of the microchip shortage seriously slowing things in the automotive industry last year, the iconic Mercedes SUV managed to set a new record in 2021 with a total of 41,174 vehicles delivered. That's the best result since the original W460 model was launched way back in 1979, and the all-terrain vehicle shows no signs of slowing down. Given its hefty price tag, it must have one of the highest profit margin products for Mercedes, it's likely that the G would've been given a priority pass to microchip assignment over its less profitable brothers like the A-Class.
Today's G-Class has some gas-guzzling engines and types of diesel in some markets, but this german SUV will survive in the electric era as a zero-emissions all-electric G-Wagen has already been confirmed for a 2024 launch after last year's EQG concept. The show car from Munich Autoshow showed big hints towards an EV adaptation of the current G-Class, rather than a ground-up electric car.
The G, which is built in Austria, is likely to be keeping its ladder frame instead of switching to the new EVA architecture of the EQS and EQE models which have led Mercedes' charge into the EV market (see what I did there?). Mercedes is working on a second bespoke electric car platform to coincide with their push towards a fully electrified fleet, but it's said that this new platform will only be used for smaller vehicles in the Mercedes-Benz range.
A Good Year All-Round For Mercedes-Benz
Getting back to sales, even though the G had its best year in sales ever, the S-Class somehow managed to beat it, for every one G wagon sold, Mercedes signed the deal on two S-Classes. Their flagship executive saloon enjoyed an increase of 40 percent to 87,064 units, with over a third sold only in China. It was a good year all around for Daimler AG, as their ultra-luxury division, Maybach, was up by 50.7 percent last year. This rise is mainly thanks to customers from China buying more than 900 cars each month, or roughly 11,000 units per year. Sporty-division AMG was also up, by 16.7 percent to 145,979 vehicles.
However, sales of Mercedes cars dropped by five percent in 2021 while the Van division was up by 2.6 percent, this is likely to be a direct effect of delivery services needing more fleet vehicles to meet the new stay-at-home demand. For Mercedes-Benz-branded plug-in hybrid and electric vehicles, it was a great year too, demand rose by a staggering 69.3 percent to 227,458 units. Sales of purely electric cars went up to 99,000 units once you factor in those sold by sub-brand Smart and vehicles sold to commercial fleets.
Much to Daimler's pleasure, orders for the EQS alone have already reached 16,370 even though the full-size electric-only sedan went on sale in August 2021. These numbers are definitely justified as it turns out that EQS is rather good after we had one on test last month. If that wasn't enough, last month the company's range-topping EV was recently introduced in the United States and China, which are predicted to be the EQS' two biggest markets. There's also an EQS53 on the way, which will serve as AMG's first electric sedan.