The transition will take place for each individual model as the company phases in a new generation of vehicles, a spokesman for the German car manufacturer said on Wednesday.
– With more electric cars, we see that customers want to switch to electronic components, batteries and electric propulsion, the spokesperson says.
The luxury car brand will therefore “gradually stop offering cars with manual transmissions”. The change will take place during 2023, but Mercedes-Benz does not specify when.
To be able to finance the mentioned investment in electric cars, as well as the further development of advanced software for the cars. To save money, Mercedes – like more and more manufacturers – will also offer fewer engines on their cars.
– We must reduce complexity. Complexity gives us extra costs. We will reduce future products, significantly reduce the platforms, dramatically reduce the number of internal combustion engines and eliminate the manual transmission, Markus Schäfer said at the time.
Every variant of modern cars has to go through expensive tests to measure emissions and consumption. For Mercedes and several others, it will then be simple mathematics to cut out some engine alternatives.
The United States was first
As early as 2015, Mercedes chose to cut out manual transmissions in North America. Norwegians and Europeans, on the other hand, have had a greater love for the gear lever, but also here on the continent, automatic transmission is becoming normal.
Today, Mercedes offers A- and B-class as well as CLA models with manual transmission.