### The Return of the Suppository: Mercedes Re-Re-Launches the EQS

In a move that absolutely everyone expected from a company currently engaged in a decade-long staring contest with its own design department, Mercedes-Benz is reintroducing the EQS. After a brief “prudent” hiatus—which is corporate-speak for “our dealers were using these as $110,000 paperweights”—the jelly bean is back.

But is a bigger battery and a faster plug enough to make us forget that this car looks like a bar of Dove soap that’s been in a warm shower for three weeks? Let’s dive into why the 2026 EQS strategy is less of a “grand return” and more of a “hope you have short-term memory loss” campaign.

#### 1. The “Prudent” Pause (Or: The Brand Identity Crisis)
The narrative suggests Mercedes was being “prudent” by pulling its EQ line when demand “dried up.” Let’s call it what it was: an emergency evacuation. Mercedes didn’t pause because the market was “wary”; they paused because the EQS had the shelf life of an open avocado.

The assumption here is that the market just wasn’t “ready” for luxury EVs. In reality, the market was perfectly ready for luxury EVs—it just wasn’t ready for a car that cost as much as a suburban home but looked like a high-end peripheral from a 1998 iMac. By the time Mercedes hit the “pause” button, EQS depreciation was already outperforming most crypto-scams. Calling this return “prudent” is like calling a tactical retreat from a swarm of bees a “scheduled outdoor cardio session.”

#### 2. The “Blobs” Are Back (And Just As Aerodynamic as Your Vacuum)
Mercedes is doubling down on the “jelly-bean shape” under the guise of aerodynamic efficiency. We get it, the coefficient of drag is 0.20-ish. That’s fantastic for a wind tunnel. It’s significantly less fantastic for a human being who wants to look at their driveway without sighing.

The fundamental flaw in the logic here is the assumption that luxury buyers prioritize a 2% gain in wind resistance over, say, *dignity*. The “blob” profile prioritizes the wind over the customer. While the tech-press loves to herald the return of the “aerodynamic profile,” most buyers just see a $130,000 car that shares its silhouette with a Honda Civic from the future—and not the cool future, the future where we all wear grey jumpsuits and eat protein paste.

#### 3. Massive Range for a “Cash-Strapped” Market
The summary claims Mercedes is targeting a “wary, cash-strapped market.” If you are “cash-strapped,” you aren’t looking at a Mercedes-Benz flagship sedan; you’re looking at a bus pass or a 2014 Toyota Corolla.

The claim that “massive range and charging gains” will solve the EQS’s woes assumes that the previous model failed because people couldn’t drive 400 miles at a time. Fact check: The average luxury car owner drives about 30 miles a day and has a Level 2 charger in their three-car garage. Adding 100 miles of range to a car that already goes 350 miles is like adding a second swimming pool to a yacht. It’s impressive on a spec sheet, but it doesn’t fix the fact that nobody wants to be seen in the boat.

#### 4. The Incentive Fallacy
The article blames “vengeful Republicans” and axed federal incentives for the EQS’s initial stumble. While politics makes for a convenient scapegoat, it ignores a glaring fact: the $7,500 federal tax credit was always a drop in the bucket for an EQS buyer.

If you are buying a car that starts north of six figures, a $7,500 credit isn’t a “make or break” deal—it’s the price of the optional Nappa leather interior and a set of branded floor mats. Attributing the death of the first-gen EQS to the loss of incentives is like saying people stopped buying Rolexes because the jeweler stopped offering free gift wrapping. People stopped buying them because the competition (Lucid, Porsche, even BMW) started making EVs that actually look like cars, not melted lozenges.

#### The Verdict: More Charging, Same Identity Crisis
Mercedes seems to think that if they just make the “blob” go faster and further, the “wary” public will finally embrace the curve. But unless the new EQS comes with an “Invisible Mode” or a body kit that looks like a 1990 S-Class, they are solving the wrong problem.

You can give a suppository “massive range,” but at the end of the day, it’s still a suppository. Good luck out there, Mercedes. We’ll see you at the next “prudent” pause in 2028.