Mercedes USA offers power upgrade via subscription

Mercedes-Benz USA has posted a new product called ‘Acceleration Increase‘ on its online shop’s website. The new service costs $1 200 for one year (excluding tax) of the service, which can improve an EQ vehicle’s acceleration by 0,8 to 1,0 seconds.

The car manufacturer’s website writes that the new service will “unleash enhanced performance for your car” and give it a “noticeable improvement in acceleration”. It will do this by adjusting the “motor characteristic curve, torque, and maximum output”.

According to Mercedes, the fine-tuning of the electric motors allows for an increase of maximum motor output for a fully electric Mercedes EQ vehicle by 20 to 24%, depending on the original factory output.

A second faster

Acceleration Increase should become available on four electric Mercedes vehicles on the US market. The models concerned are the EQE and the EQS, both in the sedan version and as an SUV. For the EQE 350 4Matic, the standard 215 kW of power is raised to 260. As a result, the acceleration time is reduced from 6,0 or 6,2 seconds to 100 kph to 5,1 and 5,2 seconds, respectively.

The standard 265 kW of an EQS 450 4Matic grows to 330 kW, a 65 kW increase that allows the sedan and the SUV to accelerate to 100 kph in less than 5 seconds, 4,5 and 4,9 seconds, respectively, to be precise (down from 5,3 and 5,8 seconds).

Prudent approach

Mercedes says the offer will be available soon but hasn’t given further comments yet. It wants to wait to see how customers react to the offer because online subscriptions of other manufacturers/competitors have been subject to criticism lately.

For example, BMW’s customers don’t understand why they have to take a subscription to have their seats heated or use Apple CarPlay while it’s standard available in the car.

The Mercedes offer is different: you really get an additional feature, an increase in power and acceleration in this case. But it remains to be seen if the average electric Mercedes customer wants to spend over $100 per month on something that isn’t visible and barely useable or noticeable in a country with stringent speed limits.

Maybe it’s more evident that clients will choose a model higher up the line or even an AMG version: then their friends and neighbors can see that they’ve bought the power.

At Mercedes, they’re apparently casting a fish and see what will happen. If it works, it’s easy money because, with these electric motors, one only has to send a software update to fix the thing. There’s no news yet of the offer being available on other continents.

 

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