For Mercedes it is the great hope: the electric model GLC, equipped with the latest technology from ultra-fast charging to modern driving assistants, should finally make the brand with the star shine again. It’s an “incredibly important car,” enthuses CEO Ola Källenius every time he’s asked about it. Compact mid-range off-road vehicles like the GLC are an important sales and profit generator, but Mercedes has recently been weak in the segment. In the short term, however, there will be no change in the weak sales figures. It will still be months before the new GLC is on the global market. Mercedes only expects noticeable effects in the third and fourth quarters, which is why Källenius has to prepare for another mixed year. On Monday, the group announced a significant decline in sales in the past year 2025: deliveries fell by nine percent to 1.8 million cars. The situation in Stuttgart is exemplary for the automotive industry at the beginning of the new year. The situation remains tense, and many important models will only be able to provide stimulus in a few months or later. However, demand will then only provide a limited boost: in America, Trump’s protectionism is dampening business, and in Europe the economy is weakening. According to experts at Deutsche Bank, price pressure in this country will continue to grow, despite the EU market being sealed off from Chinese imports. In China, on the other hand, cutthroat competition is still increasing. All in all, bankers expect “another year of transition for the automotive industry.” Fewer cars sold in China The end of the downturn has not yet been reached, especially in China. The Volkswagen Group reported on Monday that its sales in the People’s Republic fell again by eight percent to 2.7 million cars last year. While the group’s business with combustion models remained relatively stable there, sales of electric cars are in free fall; In this business, local rivals have completely lost ground. The group now expects a boost from a completely new generation of battery vehicles that were developed with local partners. They will be available to dealers gradually over the next few months and are intended to finally stop the crash in China with lower prices. Mercedes is also struggling with declining deliveries there: According to the figures published on Monday, the company in the Middle Kingdom ended last year with a whopping minus of 19 percent: the number of cars sold fell to 552,000. In Stuttgart, Mercedes boss Källenius is still waiting for his oft-announced product offensive to finally bear fruit. In addition to the GLC, the brand also introduced the CLA model as a new entry-level car last year, but it will still be a while before the cars reach dealers and then reach customers. In addition, the presentation of the new electric C-Class – together with the GLC, Mercedes’ most important vehicle – is not planned until the summer, so that these new models will not be able to stabilize sales until the end of 2026 at the earliest. VW finally wants to get out of its niche in the USA. In the luxury vehicle business, Mercedes has limited sales losses to five percent. The sports cars with the AMG logo were particularly popular with customers, with sales increasing by seven percent to 145,000. In addition, the G-Class achieved the best result in its history with a sales increase of 23 percent to 49,700 deliveries. The S-Class couldn’t keep up because customers are waiting for the new model that Mercedes will introduce at the end of January. Overall, the share of luxury vehicles in total sales rose by 0.8 percentage points to 15 percent. For Volkswagen boss Oliver Blume, the sales figures for the past year are a mortgage. At the turn of the year, the manager gave up his dual role as CEO of the VW Group and its sports car brand Porsche. He is now concentrating entirely on the management of the VW Group and needs success reports, also in order to stabilize his own position at the top of the company. The signs on the global market have recently been pointing to further headwinds: In addition to China, business in the United States has also continued to decline. VW actually wanted to get out of its niche position there, but instead sales in the North America region fell by more than ten percent, also because of Trump’s tariffs, some of which VW had to pass on to customers through price increases. More on the topic All in all, the VW Group only delivered just under nine million cars across all drive types around the world last year. This is a decrease of 0.5 percent compared to the previous year and significantly less than in record years, in which the group handed over almost eleven million vehicles to customers. In 2025, VW partially offset the weak American and Chinese business in Europe, where things went better for the group, especially because of growing demand for electric cars. New models such as the electric small car family around the ID.Polo are intended to give the segment a further boost. But they will only be released gradually this year and next. BMW is also having great difficulty selling its own cars in China. In the last three months of 2025 alone, deliveries of the BMW and Mini brands fell by almost 16 percent, as the group announced last Friday. Overall, sales fell by a good four percent to just under 668,000 units from October to December. Unlike its competitors from Stuttgart and Wolfsburg, the Munich-based company still achieved a small increase of 0.5 percent to 2.46 million cars. The outgoing BMW boss Oliver Zipse thus fulfilled his promise of an increase in sales before giving way to his successor Milan Nedeljkovic after the general meeting in May. It will take a while until the new models reach customers. Zipse’s great legacy is the “New Class”. This is what BMW has named a technology platform in which eight electric cars will appear in the next two years, three of them exclusively for the Chinese market. BMW wants to set new standards with a higher energy density, combined with a shorter charging time and a longer range. Sales of the Hungarian-made BMW iX3 have begun in Europe, and a cheaper version will be released later this year. There is also the i3 sedan built in Munich, which brings the new class into the format of the 3 series. Dealer circles report that there are already waiting lists for the iX3, such is the high demand. The success of the New Class is of paramount importance for the BMW Group: Not only has the platform absorbed investments of well over 10 billion euros, it is also the most important technology carrier for all other BMW model series. “2026 will be marked by the New Class, especially in Europe,” said Sales Director Jochen Goller recently. But by the time the new models reach customers, the year is coming to an end.
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