Mercedes-Benz USA is helping dealers accelerate their electric vehicle plans before the brand launches four battery-powered vehicles in the U.S. this year.
Ninety-nine percent of dealers are EV-ready, Dimitris Psillakis, CEO of Mercedes-Benz USA, told Automotive News. That’s up from 60 percent in October, he said.
“That’s very important because dealers are our partners, and we want to move together. If we want to go to an EV-only future by 2030, we need them to speed up,” he said. “We are on the same page with our strategy, and we work together very, very closely.”
The EV-readiness program includes technician and sales training, installation of necessary charging infrastructure, marketing displays for EVs and a two-and-a-half day immersion program in Tuscaloosa, Ala.
“It’s a 360-degree plan to welcome not only the product, but to handle customer questions and also customer fears,” Psillakis said.
The brand plans to launch the EQS AMG and EQE sedans, the EQB crossover and the EQS SUV in the U.S. this year.
Dealers are enthusiastic about the EV plan overall, said Jeff Aiosa, owner of Mercedes-Benz of New London in Connecticut.
“Dimitris and executive management did a great job of laying out the portfolio back to the dealer meeting we had last year. The dealers have done an extraordinary job in stepping up to meet requirements for the transformation to electric,” he said.
Dealers are especially excited about the EQB because it’s a crossover and more mainstream than the flagship EQS sedan, Aiosa said.
“The real message there is more mainstream pricing, more affordability for the consumer,” he said.
About 60 dealers have enrolled in a facility upgrade — not tied to the EQ line of EVs — called Evolution. The voluntary program will make dealer showrooms more open and agile, Jeff Swickard, chairman of the Mercedes-Benz Dealer Board and CEO of Swickard Auto Group, told Automotive News.
Eventually, the entire dealer network likely will enroll in the program, Aiosa added.
Mercedes also notified dealers ahead of the NADA Show that it would no longer require retailers to work with a factory-chosen intermediary for digital marketing.
The brand’s partnership with the vendor it had been using, Shift Digital, would change, though it wasn’t initially clear to dealers how that would affect their businesses, Swickard said. At the brand’s make meeting, those questions were answered.
“It’s really going to allow dealers the flexibility to develop their own kind of digital programs,” said Swickard.
Psillakis said evolving digital retail is a key part of the brand’s strategy.
Dealers’ positive reactions to the EV and digital retail news “was an assurance that we are working very closely together in moving forward in the future, which is electric and is digital,” he said.