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Mercedes-Benz electric cars: everything from EQA to EQS explained

Published: 01 November 2021

► Electric Mercedes cars and Project EQ
► The current Mercedes electric car line-up
► What you can buy today, and what's coming soon

Mercedes-Benz has already launched a handful of electric cars, with more on the way as it aims to electrify large swathes of its line-up over the next few years. In this guide we’ll round up the current choice of electric Mercs and examine the future EVs that are just around the corner.

As a brand that prides itself on technical innovation, you’d think that Mercedes would be leading the charge when it comes to premium electric cars. But to some extent it's been playing catch-up: BMW pipped them to it with Project i back in 2013, which led to the BMW i3 city car and i8 supercar.

But now Merc has hit back with the EQC, its first fully electric production car and a rival to the Jaguar i-Pace and Audi E-Tron. And it has followed it up with the EQA SUV, EQS limo and EQV minivan. The EQB SUV and EQE saloon are expected to launch imminently.

EQS factory

Further electric reading

How much is a Mercedes EQC? It's not cheap: UK prices today start at £65,720, although you do qualify for the government's Plug In Car Grant, which will reduce that by £3000. It's a pretty quick SUV, with 0-62mph in 5.1sec, 402bhp and an 80kWh battery, which takes around 2hrs 35mins to charge at home on a wallbox, or 11hrs 40min on a three-point plug. If you're lucky enough to find a super-fast DC charging station out and about, it takes just 11 minutes to charge to 80% full, says Mercedes-Benz.

Mercedes electric cars: what’s available now?

Mercedes EQA


On sale: now

The Mercedes EQA - an electric SUV based on the combustion-engined GLA - is Mercedes’ second fully electric SUV, following in the footsteps of the larger EQC. It’s a rival to the Audi Q4 e-Tron, although the latter benefits from using a platform that was designed from the ground up to be an electric vehicle. The EQA doesn’t have that luxury.

That doesn’t mean it’s a bad car though: prices start from around £40,000, and the 66.5kWh battery will give you between 250 and 264 miles depending on which spec you go for. The EQA 250 has a single 187bhp motor that drives the front wheels, resulting in 0-62mph in 8.9sec, while the EQA 300 and 350 add a second motor at the rear for four-wheel drive. The latter is the most powerful, developing 288bhp and hitting 0-62mph in six seconds flat, although the top speed of 99mph is consistent throughout.

You could argue that the exterior styling is a tad derivative, but the interior gets a clean, modern design that matches the comfortable nature of the car. It’s great value, too.

Read our Mercedes EQA review here

Mercedes EQC


On sale: now

The Mercedes EQC on the other hand isn’t cheap. Prices start from £65,720, and the SUV no longer qualifies for the government’s plug-in car grant of £2,500, which can now only be applied to zero-emission vehicles costing less than £35,000.

Still, it’s pretty quick with a 0-62mph time of 5.1sec, thanks to a powertrain that generates 402bhp. The 80kWh battery gives you 259 miles of range on paper, and you can top up cells from 10 to 80% full in just 35 minutes if you can find a 100kW charger; the fastest charge you will get from anything faster than this is 110kW, which is where the EQC maxes out.

Although it’s not as bold as the likes of the Jaguar i-Pace or Tesla Model X, the EQC has a lot going for it: a well-built, luxury cabin, arresting levels of performance and handling characteristics suited to a long, relaxed motorway cruise.

Read our Mercedes EQC review here

Mercedes EQS


On sale: now

The Mercedes EQS is the electric equivalent of the S-Class limousine, and it went on sale in September 2021 priced a fiver shy of £100,000. There are more versions to follow, but the initial offering of the rear-wheel-drive EQS 450+ brings with it 329bhp and a range of 453 miles thanks to a mammoth 107.8kWh battery. An AMG-tuned version is due at a later date: that is thought to have 700bhp at its disposal.

Of course, the S-Class is known for its technology as much as anything else, and the EQS is no different. Buyers can spec a 1,410mm ‘Hyperscreen’ that spans the entire width of the dashboard and brings three digital displays into a single unit, albeit at a cost of £7,995. And no, that’s not a typo. Other than that there are automatic pop-out doors, 350 sensors and much else besides: this will be the EV of choice for wealthy business folk with an eco conscience.

Read our Mercedes EQS review here

Mercedes EQV


On sale: now

The Mercedes EQV electric minivan was launched in the summer of 2020 with prices starting from £70,665, putting it very much at the ‘expensive’ end of the people-carrier-slash-minivan spectrum. A 100kWh battery (90kWh of that is usable) is enough for 213 miles of range, and although 201bhp sounds like a lot for a vehicle of this type, it has 3,500kg of its own bulk to contend with. So it’s not exactly fast.

That said, there’s lots of space inside for passengers and their luggage (this is the kind of vehicle that’s expected to ferry people between airport terminals and hotels) and the 45-minute charge time for a 10-80% top up means it won’t have to spend too long out of service. A handy feature for any businesses considering one.

Read all there is to know about the Mercedes EQV here

Mercedes electric cars: what’s available soon?

Mercedes EQB

On sale: late 2021

The Mercedes EQB is an electric crossover that was revealed at the Shanghai motor show in April 2021, and it’s due in Europe before the year is out. It’s a similar size and shape to the GLB, but it borrows much of the powertrain from the smaller EQA.

The same 66.5kWh battery pack is used, and a similar range of 260 miles or so is expected. The EQB 250 will be the entry-level offering at launch with 187bhp to play with, while the EQB 350 should have some 240bhp at its disposal. Prices haven’t been confirmed yet, but given the EQA’s starting figure in the region of £40,000, an extra five grand should put you in the ballpark.

Read more details about the Mercedes EQB here

Mercedes EQE


On sale: mid 2022

The Mercedes EQE has been revealed, but it won’t go on sale until the middle of 2022. It’s essentially a four-door saloon partner to the next-generation E-Class, and if the looks hadn’t already given it away, you can think of it as a smaller version of the EQS limo.

The EQE 350 is the only variant to have been unveiled so far, but be in no doubt that there are more on the way. It uses a 90kWh battery and features a single motor on the rear axle producing 288bhp and 391 lb ft of torque, a combination that Mercedes says will result in an impressive 410 miles of range. You can attribute much of that to the car’s sleek profile: Merc reckons the EQS is the world’s most aerodynamic car with a drag coefficient of 0.2, so you can bet on the EQE being almost as slippery.

Read more details about the Mercedes EQE here

There's an intriguing industrial web of complexity in the vehicles above. First, there was the EVA1 (electric vehicle architecture), which gave us the EQC derived from the GLC. Next there was EVA v1.5, a more advanced iteration that manifested itself in the EQA and imminently-arriving EQB (an electrified GLB). Then there's EVA2, a brand-new architecture conceived to underpin the new EQS and the smaller EQE, along with their SUV sister models.

Confused? Wait until you hear about the new open-source MMA (Mercedes Modular Architecture) waiting in the wings. Due in 2025 or 2026, MMA is a new platform strategy designed to bring together Merc's disparate EV hardware into one, more modular technology stack.

Project EQ: the umbrella project for Mercedes-Benz electrification

Mercedes-Benz kicked off its electric car plans back at the 2016 Paris motor show: its EQ concept car – a pointer to a new generation of electric cars and a harbinger of a whole new way of owning and driving cars bearing the three-pointed star.

The EQ was ‘very close’ to the new GLC-sized electric crossover that launched in 2018 as the EQC. But it’s the thinking behind it, as much as the actual product itself, that’s noteworthy. Daimler’s move had echoes of BMW’s Project i, which is siring a whole generation of EVs over in Munich.

The Generation EQ concept shows the first in a series of new electric Mercs and then-marketing chief Jens Thiemer took time out from the French show to explain the thinking behind the electric car project.

The Mercedes-Benz Generation EQ at the Paris motor show

‘These new cars are purpose-designed; they will not be existing cars,’ he told CAR in 2016, pointing to the crisp style pioneered by the EQ pictured above. ‘This concept car is called Generation EQ because we want to say it’s a whole family coming.

‘The model you see here is very close to the first electric production car. You will see it in 2018… and the price will be comparable to a top-end GLC.’

That GLC crossover reference is pertinent; the EQ has similar proportions, but with a slicker, more modernist vibe. Pop on production door handles, wheels, lights and interior, and you can easily imagine this sliding into dealer showrooms. And unlike BMW's posh supermini and racy sports car, Merc is planning to launch its sub-brand with a vogueish crossover. 

Jens Thiemer: the marketing chief at Mercedes-Benz for the EQ project

The front end is especially striking. Why the distinct face? ’We have to bring something new to market,’ said Thiemer (above). ‘We have to electrify the design too. We think the front end is a very strong signal of our intent.’

A top-down rethink of Mercedes motoring

The EQ project is much more than just this one car. It’s part of a new strategy dubbed CASE - encapsulating ‘the four megatrends transforming our industry.’ They are:

  • C: Connected Cars are communicating car-to-car and to the wider world
  • A: Autonomous Driverless cars are coming and will remove drudgery of driving
  • S: Sharing An Uber model will allow cars’ usage to increase hugely
  • E: Electric Battery power will become the norm in crowded city spaces

This mantra will underpin everything Mercedes-Benz does in the new era of electromobility. It’s a future in which Merc EVs are increasingly shared, with membership clubs and pay-by-the-hour availability for owners who might borrow a hybrid car for longer journeys and a pure EV for the final miles into town.

‘We see the end of ownership among people in metropolitan parts of the world,’ according to Thiemer. ‘They want to rent cars by the kilometre instead.’

The electrical hardware underpinning EQ

‘Distribution will be different too. We will not exclude our dealers but there will be a proportion of online sales.’ Expect to be buying, or more likely leasing, Mercs on your phone sooner rather than later.

Crucially, the car and its applications are at the heart of users’ digital lives. ‘The car becomes the digital device,’ argues Thiemer. ’Our services must be completely integrated with it.’

For Mercedes, connected cars will club together to spot empty parking spaces and communicate that data back out to the ecosystem. 'Finding a parking space can take 10-15 minutes on each journey today,' said Daimler's former CEO Dieter Zetsche. 'Not in a connected future.' The boss envisages a world in which Mercedes apps and services power a new sharing economy. 'Cars are not used for 23 hours a day on average. Why not use them for peer-to-peer car sharing?... It could be like AirBnB for cars!'

The future's bright, the future's electric

Mercedes’ electric adventure started some years ago, and spans everything from Smart to the biggest plug-in S-classes. Thiemer reckons it’ll take a good three years to establish the EQ brand, but says that process is well underway. ‘We will have 10 PHEVs [plug-in hybrid electric vehicles] by 2017.’

And a full range of EQ family members, all bespoke electric models? ‘Within five years we will have a whole family,’ the marketing chief tells CAR. ‘By 2025, 15-25% of the Mercedes range will be fully electric. Add in PHEVs, and they’ll make up 50% of our range.’

You’d better believe it: the electric revolution is coming. 'The car is no longer just a platform,' adds Zetsche. 'It's a digital platform.' Expect conventional wisdom to be turned upside down...

See the new Mercedes-Benz EQE electric saloon in our video below 


By Tim Pollard

Editorial director of CAR's digital publishing arm. Motoring news magnet

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