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“Car Of The Year” in China
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Best value retention in the luxury class
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Mercedes-Benz S-Class the biggest-selling luxury saloon worldwide
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Production running to full capacity, higher daily output than ever before
Within weeks of its market launch, the new S-Class has already topped various rankings. (S-Class: fuel consumption, combined: 10.3-5.5 l/100km; CO2 emissions, combined: 242-146 g/km; efficiency class: F-A.)* In addition to topping a study with its superlative value retention, the Mercedes-Benz flagship has also been chosen as “Car Of The Year” in China – its most important market. The new S-Class has been available in all core markets since October and already leads the luxury segment in terms of the number of new vehicles registered worldwide.
In China, the most important market for the new S-Class, where it has been available since the end of September, the luxury saloon has received the coveted “Car Of The Year” title. The Car of the Year was chosen by a jury of ten, comprising the editors-in-chief of the country’s leading automotive publications. The Chinese market has a special importance for the luxury saloon: in 2012, China accounted for half of all S-Class sales. Chinese customers have special wishes regarding the design of the vehicle’s rear and pay particular attention to the interior appointments, with comfort at the top of their list of priorities. Consequently, only the long-wheelbase version is available in China. For the first time, the Mercedes-Benz engineers took this model as the base version for the development process.
At the beginning of the week the new S-Class was identified as the vehicle with the best value retention in the luxury class in a study conducted by market research institute “Bähr & Fess Forecast” on behalf of “Focus Online”. The Mercedes-Benz B-Class, M-Class, the CLS and the CLA were also acknowledged for their high value retention. (B-Class:fuel consumption, combined: 6.7-4.1 l/100km; CO2 emissions, combined: 156-107 g/km; efficiency class: C-A.)*, (M-Class: fuel consumption, combined: 11.8-5.8 l/100km; CO2 emissions, combined: 276-154 g/km; efficiency class: F-A.)*, (CLS: fuel consumption, combined: 9.9-5.1 l/100km; CO2 emissions, combined: 231-134 g/km; efficiency class: E-A.)*, (CLA: fuel consumption, combined: 6.6-4.2 l/100km; CO2 emissions, combined: 154-109 g/km; efficiency class: C-A+.)*
The “Bähr & Fess Forecast” market research institute based in the German state of Saarland carries out regular surveys of resale values for used cars by reference to an extensive pool of data and identifies the so-called “resale value champions”. In the current study for “Focus Online”, the company once again ranked vehicle models possessing the highest prospective resale value, assuming that they were bought as new cars in November 2013 and subsequently resold in November 2017.
With 5240 saloons delivered to customers in October (+6.1%), only a few weeks after the model change the S-Class once again leads the global rankings for new cars registered in its segment. The S-Class has been available in all core markets since October. This means that Mercedes-Benz has introduced its flagship model into the top three S-Class markets – Germany, USA and China – in under twelve weeks, making the S-Class launch the fastest ever in the company’s history.
This near-simultaneous launch in all key markets was only possible because production of the luxury saloon started up in record time at Mercedes-Benz’s main plant in Sindelfingen. All S-Class vehicles for global distribution are rolling off the production line in Sindelfingen in a two-shift operation. S-Class production is currently running to full capacity at an output of around 460 vehicles per day. This is the highest daily output ever for the S-Class.
In 2012, Mercedes-Benz delivered over 65,000 S-Class cars. After China, the USA is the second-largest market for the S-Class. Last year, more than two thirds of all luxury saloons sold worldwide went to customers in these two countries. A special feature of vehicles sold here is the extended wheelbase: S-Class cars in China and the USA are 13 centimetres longer.
The 220 model laid the foundation for the S-Class series back in the mid-1950s.Mercedes-Benz has since delivered over 3.5 million S-Class vehicles to customers all over the world. The preceding generation alone sold over half a million units.
The launch of the new S-Class extends the Mercedes-Benz model range in the luxury segment to a total of six variants. There will now be three new models in addition to the short wheelbase and extended wheelbase variants and the S-Class coupé. To this end, Daimler is investing heavily in the Mercedes-Benz plant in Sindelfingen. Between 2011 and 2014, around €350 million is being pumped into the S-Class bodyshell, around €130 million is earmarked for the press shop and around €70 million for the S-Class assembly line.This year alone, investment in the Sindelfingen site is set to total around €1 billion.
*„The data do not relate to an individual vehicle and do not form part of the offer; they are provided solely for the purposes of comparison between different types of vehicles. The figures are provided in accordance with the German regulation “PKW-EnVKV” and apply to the German market only.“
