You Could Buy An Entire Car With This Ridiculous Mercedes EQS Markup

Tesla raises its prices constantly throughout the year, but at least buyers know that the price they'll pay is the same across the country. This is not so for legacy automakers who have to sell their new electric vehicles through a traditional dealership network. We've already spotted crazy market adjustments on the Mustang Mach-E and now dealerships are already getting greedy with the 2021 Mercedes-Benz EQS Sedan.

A Twitter user who reserved an EQS 580 was told his vehicle was ready for collection. But before he had a chance to take delivery, the dealership informed him about a $50,000 markup on top of the $119,110 starting price. The EQS is a great car, but we don't think it's worth paying roughly 40% over MSRP.

Rather than pay this exorbitant fee, Jon Rettinger passed on the car and ordered a Lucid Air instead. Like Tesla, Lucid uses a direct-to-consumer sales model, meaning it doesn't have franchised dealers that can change prices on a whim. Many states have laws that prevent automakers from selling new cars directly to consumers without a dealer acting as a middleman. Though there are benefits to the dealer system, we've seen recently that the supply chain shortages have resulted in predatory pricing for consumers who have no power to buy cars from directly from the manufacturer.

Car companies can set the MSRP, but it's up to the individual dealer to decide the sale price. Mercedes has announced a new hybrid sales model where it can sell directly to consumers and compensate the dealer later, but it will only be available in Europe.

Moving back to the EQS, Rettinger decided to email Mercedes-Benz USA to see if the company could do anything about reversing the markup. However, the response he received pretty much affirmed the worst case scenario. "I'm afraid there is not much we can do from the corporate side. Pricing is completely up to the dealer, we are legally not allowed to intervene. There's extremely limited supply initially - we are certainly not endorsing this premium but not up to us. I certainly believe the car is worth it," a Mercedes representative answered.

We hope more consumers will choose not to pay these ridiculous markups, though we understand some buyers need a new vehicle right away. Attaching markups on brand-new products is the wrong way to encourage EV adoption and will push buyers towards newer automakers like Lucid, Tesla, and Rivian.