Mercedes Confirmed the EQE Is Dead in America. Europe Has Had Only a Rumour for 13 Months.

Mercedes-Benz has confirmed that the EQE sedan is being dropped. A company spokesperson told Car and Driver on 2 October 2026 that the car leaves the 2027 model-year line-up "including the performance AMG version", along with two other six-figure models.

That is the first time Mercedes has said it out loud. It has been reported since September 2025, and Mercedes declined to confirm it for thirteen months.

What was confirmed, and where

Read the scope carefully, because the reporting around it has not. This is the United States model-year line-up. Mercedes did not say the EQE is discontinued worldwide, and it did not say anything about Europe. The EQS — the car most people assume would go first, at the top of the range — stays, and Mercedes-Benz USA has already shown the 2027 EQS.

The European story is still a rumour

Separately, and still without confirmation, the trade press has reported since September 2025 that production of both the EQE sedan, built in Bremen, and the EQE SUV, built in Tuscaloosa, ends during 2026.

On that reporting the replacements are not like-for-like. The EQE's successor would be an electric E-Class arriving in 2027 on the 800-volt MB.EA-M architecture, with the C-Class and GLC "with EQ Technology" filling the gap below it in the meantime. Mercedes has confirmed one part of that: it is retiring the EQ model names, so its electric cars take the names of their combustion siblings.

None of the production timing has come from Mercedes. Treat a European end date as unannounced.

What it means next to a Tesla

The EQE was Mercedes' answer to the electric executive saloon — the segment the Model S defined and the long-range Model 3 now mostly occupies in Europe. Dropping it, while keeping the larger EQS, says the money in electric Mercedes is at the top and at the bottom, and not in the middle.

The cars arriving instead are not weaker. The CLA on the MMA platform took 349 kW in an independent charging test — faster than any Tesla on sale. The MB.EA-M cars above it are specified for 800 volts. Mercedes is also buying its autonomy rather than building it, through its production agreement with Wayve.

So this is not a retreat from electric cars. It is the end of a naming experiment, and of one model that sold poorly enough to lose its place first.

For a European buyer

Nothing changes today. The EQE is still listed in Europe, and no European end date exists. What has changed is the risk profile of buying one: a model confirmed dead in one major market, widely reported to be ending production this year, and with a named successor on a different and newer platform, is a car whose residual value has a direction.

If you are cross-shopping an EQE against a Model 3 or Model S, that is now part of the comparison — not the specification, the runway. Ask the dealer what build slots remain and what the 2027 European line-up looks like, and weigh any discount against how long the car will be current.

Mercedes has confirmed the EQE's death in America. The sentence for Europe has not been written yet.