BEST TESTS '24 #5: EQS SUV: swanning in Merc's EV flagship
Auto tested more than 80 cars in 2024. As is tradition, we re-publish our twelve favourite tests of the year as our Best Tests daily through December. Then we present three Auto Special Awards in Best EV, Best Bakkie and Performance car of the year 2024. And then we choose the Top 3 Best Tests, before we announce Best Test 2024 on 1 January 2025. So come back for your daily Auto entertainment everyday through your holidays!
Auto Best Tests 2024 #5 Mercedes-EQS SUV 45+ AMG Line
EQS SUV offers a Mercedes EV flagship if you want one
The latest addition to Mercedes-EQ’s growing electric car line-up now fills that tiny gap left right up there in the mega-SUV niche. This one’s the electric S-class of SUVs. Basically an electric GLS. It comes brim packed with spec, luxury, abundant space, Intelligent MBUX connectivity and the option of a 7-seater cabin too.
Said to exemplify Mercedes-Benz’s sensual purity philosophy on state-of-the-art EQ EV architecture to deliver on luxury aspirations, its unique style also sets it apart from its combustion counterparts. EQS SUV also comes standard with Electric Art luxury lounge interior and Exterior package. That’s allegedly crafted as much by the wind, as it is by aesthetics. To define those gargantuan proportions.
Our EQS SUV 450+ landed on our driveway at a difficult time for EVS. New electric vehicle registrations were romping toward 25% of the German new car market when this one’s EQS Sedan sibling was first launched just over two years back. But alas, that’s all changed. All of a sudden the e-market no longer seems the silver bullet it did back then.
If you really want a battery mega SUV, here it is!
So, if you really want a luxury electric SUV, meet your battery GLS Class. But if you want a hybrid, or a straight petrol V8, even an AMG 63 version, you will also find all of those in your local Mercedes dealership. There’s even a Maybach version. So, unlike many carmakers blinded by EV visions of grandeur, Mercedes will make sure that you have that luxury of choice, no matter what drives it, for a long, long time to come.
So what about this electric GLS? Essentially a re-bodied EQS sedan with a taller command driving position and much more space inside, the EQS SUV also shares similar electric powertrains with the four-door. This EQS450+ has a rear-mounted 265 kW 800 Nm asynchronous electric motor powering the rear wheels.
Powered by a 107.8 kWh lithium ion battery with 26% higher energy content than the one used in the EQC, it has a claimed 560 km WTLP range. In real life it may make 500 km on a good day, as we found. Priced in line with the standard GLS 580, it has a 400 grand premium on the 450d.
EQS SUV is better than you’d expect off-road
It comes standard with an adjustable air suspension and a rear-axle steering for surprising agility. Unlike the sedan, the SUV gets an intelligent Off-road driving mode that raises the suspension and alters powertrain behaviour to make it surprisingly competent on light terrain.
You’re greeted by a flat black grille panel with angular headlights joined by a horizontal light bar. A fixed clamshell bonnet and unique one-bow roofline lead back to a tailgate. The wheels even have five vented plastic hub caps plugged between the spokes to deliver an exceptional 0.26 drag coefficient.
Designed to ‘exceed the expectations of even its most demanding customers’, the aluminium-bodied EQS is 9 centimetres shorter than the sedan at 5,216 mm long, but 5 cm wider at 1,926 mm wide and a full 20 cm taller at 1,512 mm. It rides on the same, long 3,210 mm wheelbase and so has even shorter overhangs.
EQS SUV Gulps big people up with ease
The biggest Merc EV also overcomes one of the sedan’s challenges for bigger, older guys and girls to climb into and out of. The SUV even allows a man with a hat easy enough access and egress.
A luxurious space once aboard, a high centre console sets it apart and the flat floor also brings greater rear seat room than the gas cars. Our EQS SUV lacked Mercedes’ new triple digital display Hyperscreen, which is an option. But it still packed Merc’s latest generation MBUX ‘Hey Mercedes’ operating system. Sadly it is woefully let down by a total lack of physical buttons and knobs.
It truth, this electric S-class of SUVs does a pretty damned decent job. It gets on with it in worryingly quiet and smooth style, beats Mercedes’ own claims of performance, and even trumps the Sedan on the drag strip. Handling, even off the road in this case, impressed, in spite of that bulk and heft. And we were intrigued by its regenerative abilities, and real world range.
Delivers top end EV SUV power if you want it
Like all EVs, those driving distance claims seem to have been achieved down a very long mineshaft. And of course it gets a quarter worse if it’s too cold, or too hot. That’s just another EV thing.
But the EQS SUV’s biggest party trick is that if you do not want an EV, Mercedes will not force it down your throat and happily sell you a petrol, diesel, or hybrid alternative. God help those carmakers who tagged their brand to the EV pole.
In its own right however, this groundbreaking electric EQS SUV delivers battery power at the top end of the SUV spectrum if that’s what you really want. And it does a damn good job of it too. – Michele Lupini
Testing & images: Giordano Lupini
ROAD TESTED: Mercedes-EQS SUV 45+ AMG Line Motor: 265 kW 800 Nm synchronous electric Battery: 107.8 kWh lithium ion Drive: Direct, RWD TESTED: 0-60 km/h: 2.69 sec 0-100 km/h: 5.70 sec 0-120 km/h: 7.85 sec 0-160 km/h: 13.67 sec 400m: 12.0 sec @ 186 km/h 80-120 km/h: 3.84 sec 120-160 km/h: 5.81 sec CLAIMED: VMax: 210 km/h Energy: 17.9 kWh/100 km Range: 560 km Warranty/Service: 2y unl./5y 100K km LIST PRICE: R2.85M How does it shape up? Check Auto's Test Records now!
