Here's Why Mercedes-Benz Discontinued The A-Class Sedan In The US

Mercedes-Benz announced in February 2022 that the A-Class sedan would be dropped at the end of the model year. The elegantly tech-savvy A-Class Sedan joined the company's U.S. lineup in 2019 and ran for four model years. The fourth generation of the A-Class was the only one to be sold in the U.S. This was due to its very small size and the previous lack of a four-door sedan. The A-Class sedan for the U.S. was initially built at Mercedes-Benz's $1 Billion joint venture plant with Nissan's Infiniti, located in Aguascalientes, Mexico. 

In July 2020, after two years of Mexican production, A-Class production ceased there, continuing in Germany, Finland, and Hungary. This made room in Aguascalientes for increased production of Mercedes' GLB SUV, which generates more sales than the A-Class Sedan. 

There are numerous forces that come into play when a manufacturer decides to drop a vehicle from a given country's lineup. These forces ultimately led Mercedes-Benz to discontinue the A-Class Sedan in the U.S. 

My Mercedes-related background: In 1973, I persuaded my father to switch from a Buick to a Mercedes-Benz W114 280 with the M110 DOHC inline-six. He owned it until 1988. I leased my first Benz in 1994, a W202 C280 with the M104 DOHC inline-six. I bought it at lease-end and had it for a total of 22 years and 225,000 miles until it was rear-ended on a California freeway. These two cars shared the same 2.8L DOHC engine, the '73 having the earliest version and the '94 having the last.

In the U.S. market, there has been a noticeable move by customers to choose SUVs and crossover-type vehicles over sedans. Ford no longer makes sedans and GM will cease sedan production this year. When it comes to smaller vehicles like the A-Class sedan, customers are increasingly likely to choose SUVs because of their additional interior space, higher seating position, and the illusion of increased safety. What's more, subcompact SUV prices are getting closer to those of the sedans that were originally intended to be the price leaders. 

This is the motivation behind Mercedes-Benz's decision to drop the A-Class Sedan. Slowing sales of the sedan (from 17,641 in 2019 to 8,108 in 2021), combined with increasing SUV sales and the availability of a new, Mexican-built entry-level Mercedes-Benz SUV to keep that factory humming, likely spurred Mercedes product planners to see that there was little downside to dropping the A-Class sedan. In addition, moving the A-Class from Mexico to Europe increases its production cost, making it less profitable to sell here.

For those still wanting a sedan, the CLA four-door Coupe remains in the Mercedes lineup, priced from $44,400. For those who prefer an SUV, the entry-level GLA currently starts at $43,000 (for comparison, the GLA was priced at $37,450 at the time that the A-Class was axed in 2022, an increase of $2,450 over the $35,000 price of the A-Class). This now makes the SUV less expensive than the sedan, so mission accomplished, Mercedes-Benz.