Mercedes-Benz will ditch the Metris van from its U.S. lineup late subsequent 12 months and exit the midsize business van phase.
The automaker informed sellers in a memo Thursday it can discontinue gross sales of the four-cylinder gasoline engine that powers the Metris and Sprinter business vans.
“In consequence, the Mercedes-Benz Metris and gasoline Sprinter fashions will now not be supplied within the U.S. market after Q3 2023,” the model’s U.S. vice chairman of economic automobiles, Nicolette Lambrechts, stated within the memo obtained by Automotive Information.
Mercedes-Benz will proceed to supply the four-cylinder diesel Sprinter mannequin, which a vendor stated accounts for about 75 p.c of the nameplate’s U.S. gross sales.
Accessible in passenger and cargo configurations, the midsize Metris has failed to achieve traction in a market that prefers both massive or small business vans however not in-between.
Mercedes has delivered about 60,000 Metris vans within the U.S. since its 2015 debut, in line with the Automotive Information Analysis & Knowledge Middle. Throughout that interval, Mercedes offered greater than 4 instances as many Sprinter vans right here.
The U.S. authorities has accounted for the majority of Metris orders this decade. In 2020, the U.S. Postal Service signed a multi-year contract for about 30,000 of the automobiles.
That 12 months, Metris gross sales peaked at almost 15,000, with the Postal Service accounting for about 80 p.c of them, in line with a supply aware of Mercedes’ business automobile enterprise.
“We’re going to honor our contract with the U.S. Postal Service,” the supply stated. “As soon as we try this, we’re bailing out.”
Mercedes-Benz has sourced the four-cylinder gasoline engines for its business vans from Nissan’s Decherd, Tenn., engine plant since 2015. The engine manufacturing will finish subsequent 12 months as Mercedes drives towards an all-electric lineup by early subsequent decade.
Mercedes is axing the Metris as the luxurious automaker trims a U.S. mannequin lineup that has almost doubled to 15 nameplates since 2000. Mercedes is dropping the A-Class within the U.S. and informed sellers it can substitute the C-Class and E-Class coupes with the two-door CLE nameplate.
“As buyer and market necessities constantly evolve, our technique is to optimize our product providing,” Lambrechts famous.
