The current E-Class generation could be the last that Mercedes offers with taxi preparation.
Dusseldorf Mercedes taxis have shaped the streets of the republic for decades. That could be over in the foreseeable future: Mercedes wants to discontinue the taxi variant of the E-Class with the next model change in the coming year, as reported by the “Wirtschaftswoche” with reference to internal letters. The taxi version of the B-Class will also no longer be available from 2023.
The German Taxi and Rental Car Association is upset about this. The omission of the E-Class as a taxi was “catastrophic” quoted Wirtschaftswoche from a letter to Mercedes boss Ola Källenius. Such a step would “lead to a serious disruption of the relationship between the trade and Mercedes-Benz,” says a letter.
At the beginning of March, Mercedes had already withdrawn from the favorable financing for new taxis. Wirtschaftswoche quotes a letter from a Mercedes branch to customers, which states under the heading “Taxi interest rate” that the well-known financing campaign is ending. All orders until March 1 would still be financed at 2.99 percent. “After that we can no longer offer this interest rate.” In the future, taxes could only be financed with significantly more expensive conditions.
Mercedes has more than 100 years of taxi history. By the mid-1930s at the latest, the Swabians had established a dominant position on the German cab market with taxi-friendly equipment, good conditions and short delivery times. Customers were impressed by the comfort, the equipment and the convenience of the vehicles, the drivers praised the friendly workshops and robust technology.
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With the Stroke 8 model – for the first time in the typical light ivory color – the prototypical taxi as we know it today appeared on the scene in the late 1960s. An image that was consolidated a short time later by the W 123, which was followed in 1984 by the first E-Class.
For decades, Mercedes was the favorite of taxi drivers in Germany.
However, there was a dent in German taxi companies’ enthusiasm for Mercedes with the introduction of the 211 series in the spring of 2002. Their electro-hydraulic high-tech brakes SBC not only worked poorly in the demanding taxi service at first, but also damaged the image the entire series.
The SBC disaster was just one of the reasons that led to more diversity in the taxi market. From then on, smaller models such as the A-Class or larger ones such as the V-Class were also in demand. And other manufacturers also pushed harder into the market, such as VW with its natural gas models or Toyota with the hybrid Prius. After the end of the E-Class, the range should become even more colorful.
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