Mercedes-Benz spent a lot of time and likely money launching its EQ sub-brand for Electric vehicles. Even so, the automaker appears to have realized there’s no point in separate branding when it plans to convert its entire catalog to EVs. 

The Drive found a report from the German newspaper Handelsblatt, which stated that Mercedes would kill the EQ brand by the end of next year. That will leave several years in which the automaker sells both gas and electric variants of nearly identical vehicles. Mercedes launched the brand in 2016 and currently has three SUVs and two sedans bearing the name in the United States. 

For example, the EQB electric crossover would sell next to the GLB gas model, though, without the “EQ” branding, the EV might become a trim level of the overall GLB offering. If that’s the case, the challenge will be maintaining the visibility of electric models as they sell alongside their gas counterparts.

As The Drive notes, Mercedes isn’t alone in facing this challenge. BMW, Volvo, Volkswagen, and others have separated EVs from existing product lines with unique branding, but before the brands reach complete electrification, there will be several models with confusingly similar names to gas vehicles. 

[Image: Mercedes-Benz]

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