2022 Mercedes-Benz EQS: Welcoming big luxury to the EV world
Cars
[MUSIC]
We are way overdue for a proper premium luxury Evie, you think in my lessons luxurious.
I'm talking about stuff like massaging seats front and rear a mind blowing sound system, customizable scent profiles and all the other luxury accoutrements we've come to expect from a car like Mercedes Benz S Class.
Now Mercedes is finally bringing that level of luxury to the ED space with this.
It's the EQ s. And we've seen this car in concept form before, but you've never seen it like this.
This is a nearly production ready prototype version, and we're taking you on a first drive today.
Now there are so many reasons why everyone should be excited about electric cars even ignoring all the environmental benefits.
There's the torque and the throttle response, the lack of maintenance, the reliability, the list goes on and on and on.
But when we're specifically talking about luxury cars, that list gets even longer.
After all, what's more luxurious than something perfectly silent and smooth.
And that's exactly how Mercedes engineers designed it to be both of the electric motors in this car one of the back and one of the front in this 580 formatic EQS have been isolated from the chassis to make sure that none of the small amount of noise or vibration that they make actually finds its way here into the cabin.
And any gaps in the bodywork were filled with foam and we've even got acoustic glass So, it's a very calm, very quiet, very relaxing place to be.
But that doesn't mean that it has to be boring.
Right now I'm in comfort mode.
But if I can just give a quick tap on the dynamic mode to bring us over to sport mode, I can now have access to all the power right under my right foot and let's see how the throttle response This is [LAUGH] pretty good.
If I were a 16 horsepower this car, and because it's electric, all that power is just instantaneous.
It makes it feel far more quick than it actually is actually quicker even then the AMG GTR feels like anyway.
Now this is a big heavy car, but ultimately the way that that Swan response is in the fact that there's more power at the rear than at the front Should mean this is gonna be pretty engaging to drive when I'm allowed to drive a little bit more quickly than I'm able to today.
[SOUND]
Given this as an Eevee, I'd be remiss if I didn't talk about the regeneration By default, the EQS is in what's called intelligent region mode, which basically uses the sensors of the car to determine how much regeneration the car uses, basically how quickly it slows down when you lift off of the accelerator.
So if I'm cruising down a hill on, there's nothing in front of me, it will actually lift the car coast.
But if the car detects another car in front of me, it will increase the region to make sure that I maintain In a safe distance from the car, even if the cruise control is not enabled.
Now I tried that just a little bit and I found it a little bit hard for me to figure out.
But maybe with a little bit more time, I'll get to know that better.
Thankfully, you can quickly override that with the two shift paddles here on the back of the steering wheel.
Two taps in the left one and that puts us into increased region mode.
At this point now when I lift off the throttle, we get quite a bit more region than before and this is basically the sort of single pedal driving mode that I prefer in an EV such that even when I lift off the throttle, it will slow the car down and eventually Brandt to a complete stop.
Now this isn't actually the first time I've been behind the wheel of an EQ s, I got to drive the concept version with its silly yoke steering wheel back in Japan in 2019.
But as far as drives go, that was one of those super early situations where the thing was held together with duct tape and baling twine.
And I'd be careful where I put my weight when getting into it.
This one thankfully is much more solidly built.
It's almost ready for production.
But what that car lacked in solidity, it more than made up for in style.
This one well that remains to be seen.
While I know this is the most aerodynamic mass market production car on the planet, with a coefficient of drag of just 0.20 I don't really know what it looks like.
Mercedes has left the bulk of this car wrapped up in vinyl camouflage and as tempted as I am to peel this stuff off and show you what's underneath Let's just say that wouldn't go over too well with the folks in Stuttgart.
We'll just have to wait a little while longer for the full unveil.
What I can show you is the entirety of the interior of the EQ s, which is frankly Pretty amazing.
I'm starting at the rear seats because this is where most current S Class owners will spend their days getting shuttled through their busy busy lives.
And it's pretty nice back here, maybe not quite as much room as the current S Class led rooms a little bit tired but still incredibly comfortable.
We've got the premium package, I've got my own infotainment experience here.
if that weren't enough, I've got a removable tablet here in the central console as well.
But the same the real hallmark of the interior of the EQ is, you got to go back up front.
This is the HyperX screen.
56 inches of curved OLED led goodness spanning from gauge cluster on the left to the passenger compartment way over on the right, all interconnected and allowing access to the same information but in different ways.
Way over there the passenger could look up the weather or search for restaurants and the like destinations they can then send to the navigation system on the car, which pops up in front of the gauge cluster.
In front of me there is an absolutely massive augmented reality heads up display that takes up just about half of the windshield in front of the driver here This, of course gives you the normal HUD stuff with speed and it gives arrows to turn that kind of thing.
But what's really impressive is that the augmented reality implementation here is more advanced than anything I've ever seen before.
I was driving through Manhattan to get here to the shoot location today.
And on every road, every corner, I had to make it projected the blue line over that corner so I knew exactly where I needed to turn and as I got closer, that blue line.
Closer.
Even when I was following another car on the adaptive cruise control was on it drew a line underneath the car ahead of me to let me both know there's a car there, but also let me know that the car knows that there's a car there.
Really really impressive stuff.
Beyond that I have a whole selection of different visual modes here in the gauge cluster, including this kind of funky UFO style G metre thing which is kind of cool.
And if I get a little bit I don't know tired of the almost oppressive silence that we have in here.
There's a series of sound experiences that I can enable in the car.
I'll turn those on.
Now we'll toggle through a few of them and see if you can hear them they're a little bit quiet but hopefully we can pick them up.
First, is silver waves.
Now as I turn this on, it will change the sound of the engine will accelerate and also the sound would I decelerate, so the region mode also So, give them a throttle.
That's got a nice little throaty sound to it.
Moving on to the next one, this one's called a vivid flux.
[BLANK_AUDIO]
Okay, that's the futuristic mode I guess.
The final one roaring pulse.
[SOUND]
Yeah, okay, that sounds like an AMG GT mix with a lion or something very interesting.
Those definitely make the car a little bit more fun when you're driving hard, but frankly I think I'll turn them off.
[BLANK_AUDIO]
Although sounds come through a 15 speaker 710 watt burmester sound system that is just divine.
Now all of that is great but if you're an Eevee afficionado you know that all this luxury is useless without range.
After all, what's the point of having a car so comfortable you could spend all day in it.
Don't he has never arranged for quick John's no fear the EQ s should deliver some commanding range.
I say should because the official EPA figures aren't out yet.
But on the European w LTP.
cycle the EQ s manages up to 480 miles of range from his 107.8 kilowatt hour battery pack.
The larger of two available pack sizes, the U S EPA cycle.
It should rate closer to 400, which puts it right in line with the Tesla model S long range.
That's upwards of six hours of highway driving non-stop.
At which point I would certainly be ready for a break myself.
And if you do stop.
200 kilowatt charging kit building means this thing can Hoover down about 190 miles worth of electrons in just 15 minutes.
And if that weren't enough, Mercedes has arranged partnerships with most major charging networks.
So you won't have to fumble with 80 different apps or membership cards.
Just plug in and go.
So has Mercedes Benz done it is this the ultimate premium luxury Evie that I've been waiting for.
It's still a little bit early to tell.
We don't know exactly what it's gonna look like we don't have the formal range figures in yet.
And most importantly, we don't know how much this thing's gonna cost But with all the premium features on the inside that I'm looking for with that effortless performance and that incredibly smooth ride, if I had to choose between an S Class right now and one of these, I choose this guy.
[MUSIC].
