In the occasion you most popular Mercedes-Benz’s flagship electric sedan, the EQS, nevertheless grimaced at its six-figure price tag (or don’t actually really feel you need its sundry bells and whistles), the German automaker has a model new automobile on the best way through which that may very well be of curiosity. On Sunday, Mercedes-Benz revealed the EQE, a barely smaller sedan constructed on the similar technical platform that may undoubtedly be a few {dollars} cheaper when it launches subsequent yr — though the company didn’t share pricing.
The EQE was revealed on the 2021 IAA Mobility conference alongside a few completely different electrics which is likely to be coming out of Stuttgart: the EQB compact SUV, AMG effectivity and Maybach variations of the EQS, and {an electrical} G-Wagen thought.
Whereas the EQE is 3.5 inches shorter than the EQS, it’s going to share a great deal of the similar traits as the company’s major electrical sedan — the reality is, at one stage in its press launch, Mercedes-Benz says the EQE will doubtless be “[c]ontinuing the great genes of the EQS.”
That said, quite a lot of the EQS’s additional standout choices are actually not customary. The massive “hyperscreen” display that dominates the dashboard will doubtless be obtainable, nevertheless solely as an risk. Rear-axle steering may additionally be obtainable… as an risk. (Within the EQS, 4.5 ranges of rear-axle steering is customary, whereas patrons pays additional to primarily “unlock” 10 ranges of rear axle steering.) The EQE will get over-the-air updates and upgrades, too.
The rear-wheel drive launch model of the EQE will use the similar 90kWh battery pack that powers the underside model of the EQS, which the company says will doubtless be good for as a lot as a robust 660 kilometers (410 miles) of driving on a full value — though that decide depends on the additional forgiving European WLTP customary, and so a additional life like differ estimate will attainable be lower.
This EQE will put down significantly a lot much less power — 288 horsepower versus the 516HP of the all-wheel drive EQS. Mercedes-Benz says a second variant will doubtless be obtainable at launch, though it didn’t clarify whether or not or not that completely different EQE will doubtless be roughly succesful.
Nonetheless, by setting up on {an electrical} automobile platform and ditching the combustion powertrain, Mercedes-Benz says that the EQE’s inside dimensions “clearly exceed” these of the current E-Class. Virtually, this means there’s an extra inch of shoulder room for these sitting up entrance, and an extra three inches in inside dimension. Being seated atop the battery pack moreover means the EQE supplies the following seating place for a good increased view of the freeway.
The EQS already seems like a worthy competitor to Tesla’s Mannequin S Plaid, so the EQE is all about attempting to provide a significantly additional cheap and approachable strategy into what Mercedes-Benz is doing on the extreme end with its electrical automobiles. And as long as it executes, the EQE may probably be a way more promising entrant into the market than a number of of Mercedes-Benz’s completely different early makes an try, similar to the EQC, which was filled with compromises on account of being being constructed on a combustion engine platform as a substitute of being a ground-up electrical automobile — one among many aims that it established when it first revealed the Vision EQS concept in 2019.
“After the EQS, the EQE is already the second mannequin on our platform for luxury- and premium-class electrical autos,” Markus Schäfer, chief working officer of Mercedes-Benz said in an announcement. “This velocity of innovation reveals the benefits of the scalable structure: With the brand new EQE, we are able to rapidly make the high-tech options of our electrical flagship EQS obtainable to a wider group of patrons.”
One of many various massive aims Mercedes-Benz laid out with the Imaginative and prescient EQS in 2019 was sustainability, and it’s backing up a number of of that ambition with the EQE. The company says the structural shell of the car is made with recycled metallic, and that a lot of the within elements are fabricated from recycled and renewable provides, along with cable ducts. Mercedes-Benz moreover says decrease than 10 p.c of the battery chemistry consists of cobalt.
That’s good to hearken to from a company that, like Volkswagen, spent years lying about the true emissions of its diesel cars and intentionally duped regulators. Although it attainable gained’t improve EQE product sales. As another, Mercedes-Benz should persuade patrons that sedans nonetheless have a spot on the earth — and that {an electrical} E-class is just as rather a lot worth a yr’s wage as its gas-powered predecessors.
