Mercedes-Benz’ high end Maybach division can soon expect some serious competition from an even more luxurious BMW 7-Series. The Bavarian brand is on course to bring out a serious Maybach competitor according to chief of development, Klaus Fröhlich.
Before BMW takes off the wraps of the most luxurious 7-Series to date, it intends to count on sales of a plug-in hybrid 7-series and a first high-performance version of the luxury sedan. The 7-series has shown steady sales over the course of the last year, with peak sales in July 2015 during which sales of the luxury sedan more than doubled to an impressive 5,025 vehicles.
The new ultra luxurious addition to the 7-series range is expected to have a price tag of around €150,000, translating to roughly $170,000. The upcoming Audi A8 is however a force to be reckoned with. It is expected to feature superior semi-autonomous driving systems to both the Mercedes-Benz S-Class and BMW 7-series and will stir up the competition in the high-end sedan segment once again.
A BNP Paribas analyst from London went as far as to say: “The new A8 will be quite a meaningful departure from the current model and you would expect to see 7-series sales start to decline again when the A8 comes out.”
The luxury sedan segment remains an interesting market for car makes for a wide array of reasons. One of the main reasons are the rather substantial profit margins: Mercedes-Benz is said to have an average of 14% profit margin on a sold S-Class model, while BMW saw an estimated return of 11% on each 7-series. Both these figures exceed the standard profit margins for all other passenger cars by a fair amount.
