Making Mercedes Great Again

Mercedes appears to be sobering up – but that Green EV Kool Aid packs one hell of a punch.

Germany’s most prestigious luxury car brand after BMW has begun to realize that people who have Mercedes money to spend are not much interested in driving devices that aren’t much different from other brands’ devices.

Much less waiting around to drive a device – while it charges.

That latter is as “luxurious” as waiting for the bus.

One of the main reasons people spend luxury car money is to not be one of the proles stuck in a queue – whether for they’re waiting for the bus or waiting for a charge. I experienced this ignominious situation myself when I last had a Mercedes device to test drive. It was a six figure EQS – which is a device made to look like a Mercedes S-Class sedan. The difference being that with the EQS, you get to wait like a Prole with a broken-down Yugo at Sheetz or some other semi-seedy shopping plaza parking lot while the guy in the Yugo gets back in his vehicle and drives wherever he needs to go.

Unsurprisingly, Mercedes has discovered devices aren’t selling. More finely, battery-powered devices aren’t selling.

Batteries are great for starting engines but this idea of replacing engines with batteries is a non-starter, especially for the luxury brands because people with that kind of money to spend do not like waiting and do not like driving what amounts to the same thing as everyone else and especially everyone else who hasn’t got luxury car money to spend. Exclusivity being one of the things people who have luxury car money expect to get for their money.

But what is exclusive about a device?

I wrote about how the EQE – another Mercedes-badged device  – is so similar to a Hyundai-badged device it’s difficult to tell the difference. Except as regards price. There are tens of thousands of dollars’ difference between the EQE device and the Hyundai device but that’s about all the difference there is. Other than the badges, of course. Is a plastic three-pointed star really worth $30k more than a Hyundai badge?

Apparently not.

What people with Mercedes money to spend expect – more finely, what they have a right to expect – is more than just a three-pointed star for the extra $30k. Something like a Mercedes V8.

And that’s coming, according to just-released teasers about a “major upgrade for the S-Class,” that will apparently include an all-new V8 and the retention of the V12 engine. Both of these engines are as far from devices as Bruce Jenner is from being a woman. Reversing course – more finely, waking up and smelling the coffee – is on order. Mercedes  says it intends to “master” a “transformation” – which is quite a different thing than the “transition” to “electrification” it had committed to about four years ago, when it bet on Green Communism spreading its poisonous leaves into a thicket from which none could escape.

That did not happen for a variety of reasons, among them the truth getting out about what it’s like to actually live with a device – which is what got me in trouble with Mercedes such that the company decided to punish me for truthfulness by no longer sending me devices (or vehicles) to write about.

But – too late. The cat is already out of the bag.

Another reason is that device-pushers did not take into account the effect of alternatives to devices. Why buy a device when you do not have to? Why not just drive a vehicle – new or used – that does not force you to spend all that time and hassle waiting around for a charge – and worrying about how much charge is left?  If the device-pushers had been as smart as they are malicious, they would have found some excuse to make those alternatives untenable, as by imposing huge “pollute pays” registration fees/taxes on them or by adding a $10 surcharge to the cost of every gallon of gas. That might have pushed people into devices and then people with Mercedes money to spend would have queued up, probably.

But they didn’t think to make the alternatives to devices untenable and that plus the truth about devices leaking out and the changing political situation has all-but-put-and-end to this device-pushing.

Thus the return of engines and in particular, V8 and V12 engines – which are two things that transform a device into a Mercedes. The first thing being they are different than other brands’ engines. A Mercedes V8 (or V12) is unlike any other brand’s V8 or V12 and the difference is even greater when the other brand only has batteries to offer. But most of all, they are exclusive – particularly now given how “exclusive” even a V6 has become.

But – aye – therein lies the rub.

It is wonderful to see Mercedes going back to Mercedes-appropriate engines. Less wonderful is the nascent exclusivity of such engines.

While it is true that a V8 (let alone V12) equipped Mercedes was never exactly affordable, there was a time when they were not as exclusive – as exotic – as they have become. V8s used to be fairly common in $60-$80k luxury cars and were available as recently as two years ago in $50k non-luxury-brand cars such as the Charger (that’s now a device). Go back about 14 years and V8s were available in $30k cars such as the Ford Crown Vic, which was about the same size as a new S-Class Mercedes, too.

This new V8 will likely be available only in six-figures-plus luxury cars such as the S-Class, which currently stickers for $117,700 with a V6 engine.

What do you suppose Mercedes will ask for one with the new V8?

This isn’t just a Mercedes issue, either. It is of a piece with the general paradigm shift – accelerated by the device-pushing that arose in consequence of the green pushing – toward less for more for most of us and a lot for the very few who can still afford the luxury.

Ferrari and Porsche are further cases-in-point. They are developing “green” (synthetically produced) gasoline to power their engines. The stuff is expected to cost $20 per gallon, which is no impediment to people who can afford a Porsche or a Ferrari.

But it will automatically exclude 99 percent of the rest of us.

This is as intentional as it is subtle. “Green” means red. It means opulence for the few and less for the rest. We are already arrived at the point that a V6 engine is a luxury item found almost exclusively in exclusively priced vehicles. Such engines are not going away; they are just becoming unavailable.

Kind of like a new home.

Kind of like pretty much everything else.

. . .

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