New Mercedes EQS electric SUV promises a luxurious interior and the longest electric range of any car in its class…
On sale Late 2022 | Price from £110,000 (est)
These days, it’s not enough to announce your status by turning up in a luxury SUV; you also need to show you care about the planet. And that’s where the new Mercedes EQS comes in.
As a range-topping SUV, the EQS not only packages all the comforts and technologies of the S-Class limousine into a more family-friendly body, but it also has green credentials, because it’s electric. It’s like David Attenborough wearing designer shoes and an Armani jacket, then, and should certainly turn heads at the school gates.
The EQS’s other party piece is that it’s one of only two electric SUVs to be available with the option of seven seats right now – the other being the smaller Mercedes EQB.
The EQS SUV shares its underpinnings and electric drive systems with the EQS luxury saloon. The entry-level 450+ is powered by a single electric motor producing 355bhp and driving the rear wheels. Energy is supplied by an enormous, 108kWh battery that promises an impressive range of 410 miles. That’s enough to get you from London to Manchester and back without stopping.
Further up the range, 450 4Matic versions get a second electric motor and four-wheel drive, with a reduced range of 380 miles – although that’s still enough to comfortably beat what the rival Audi E-tron can manage and match the BMW iX. Range-topping 580 4Matic models get more power, at 536bhp, making for a potentially blistering 0-62mph time. Drivers seeking even more pace won’t not have long to wait; Mercedes’ AMG performance division is known to be working on at least one hot EQS variant.
Every EQS can charge at a rate of up to 200kW and, if you can find a suitably powerful charging point, can replenish its battery to 80% of capacity in as little as 31 minutes.
Inside, you’d be forgiven for thinking you’ve gotten into a spaceship by mistake. That’s because the EQS SUV, like its EQS saloon sibling, is available with a giant, 55in ‘Hyperscreen’ that runs the width of the interior and includes digital instruments, a main infotainment touchscreen and a second screen for the front passenger.
Our experience with this in the EQS suggests that it won’t dramatically improve ease of use, but for sheer wow factor, it’s hard to beat. Even without this system, every EQS still gets a 12.3in digital instrument cluster and 12.8in infotainment screen as standard.
If you want even more screens inside your EQS, you can optionally add two 11.6in tablet-style screens for rear seat passengers to use.
Packing light shouldn’t be necessary, because the EQS has up to 880 litres of boot space available with its third row of seats folded down – a lot more than you get in the iX. Even with seven bottoms on seats, you should still be able to fit your weekly shop into the EQS without any trouble. And should you need to liberate some extra space for that tip run, the EQS’s second row splits and folds in a handy 40/20/40 arrangement.
As with the EQS luxury saloon, drivers will be able to pay to unlock new features even after they’ve bought the car via over-the-air updates. Those features include augmented reality navigation, which projects sat-nav instructions onto your windscreen via a head-up display, and a dashboard camera.
Given the EQS SUV’s range-topping nature, prices are expected to start at around £110,000. That’s more than you’d pay for any electric rival but still undercuts other hyper-luxury SUVs such as the Bentley Bentayga.
Keyword: 2022 Mercedes EQS electric SUV revealed: price, specs and release date