► Month one with the Mercedes EV
► But is it any good?
► Our journey begins
For Mercedes, the E- and S-Class have for decades represented ‘Peak Merc’. It could build all the hot hatches and SUVs that it wanted to, but nothing else distils the essence of Mercedes-Benz quite as clearly as the big saloons.
BMW was never in that slot – you tended to need to be in an M3 to understand the Bavarian brand (although less so these days). But for Mercedes, the luxury, the sense of isolation and the supreme quality was almost always where the E and S sat. The BMW 5 was for the handling nerds, the E for the business suit. You knew your company was doing well if the directors drove Mercs.
So the EQE should be an easy car to digest. An electric E-Class. And yet it’s proving a tricky car to get my head around – what’s its USP, the killer quality you could direct a potential buyer towards?
The looks are the first thing that grab you. Or not. Design is, obviously, entirely subjective but it’s fair to say that the current crop of Mercs haven’t had rave reviews. ‘A bar of soap’ as one pal put it recently.
Normally, I don’t like to let a car’s looks define it – colleagues always complain about how I opt for small wheels to make cars ride well, while not giving a fig for the style. But my issue with the EQE is that it doesn’t feel special enough as you approach it, or substantial enough to justify the price.
There are neat aero tricks aplenty (the one behind the rear wheel looks particularly clever), helping it achieve an impressively low drag coefficient of 0.22, but the rounded edges make it look too blobby. It lacks visual dynamism and edge.
Our car is the AMG Line Premium Plus, so comes with a host of tech as standard. In fact, there’s not a single option on the car – a rarity for a German manufacturer – but it manages to feel well kitted out. And so, it should with a price of £86,345.
As this is the first report it may be premature to start weighing up the car’s value for money, but it’s difficult not to suspect that Mercedes itself is concerned that the car’s price is on the steep side – why else is it offering zero per cent APR and £4k discount on new EQEs at the time of writing?
Used EQEs are interesting. A quick search on any second- hand car site will yield EQEs with less than 10,000 miles on the clock costing well under £50k. That starts to look like a seriously sensible buy and highlights just what an al- mighty challenge manufacturers face in persuading people that new electric cars are worth the moolah.
Still, back to our box-fresh EQE. Cheaper ones are available, starting at £68,775, but our high-end AMG Line Premium Plus adds features including air suspension, digital LED head- lights (really very impressive and better at adapting to oncoming traffic than our Range Rover Sport), 21-inch wheels, acoustic comfort package, head-up display, augmented reality for the touchscreen nav (not great, and superfluous when you consider that the regular head-up display shows you nav directions anyway) and extra driving assistance.
The lane change is okay but not perfect, in that it only rarely forces me into the path of on- coming cars, but the emergency brake assist is a disaster. I was doing 55mph on a back road and approached a stationary van sat on the other side of the white line, waiting to turn across me.
The EQE panicked, slammed the brakes on and reeled the seatbelt in with such violence that it felt like Bruce Lee had delivered his famed one-inch punch. Not a reassuring moment. I’m sure this stuff has saved lives, but in that instance, it was completely unnecessary.
Based on the same EVA2 platform as the EQS, our EQE 300 has sensible power levels – 241bhp and 405lb ft – that are fine for most journeys but don’t exactly set your pants on fire (an EQE 350 is available if you fancy a bit of that, along with the bonkers AMG 53). It’s more about smooth progress.
The air suspension helps. So far, most journeys have been re- laxed rather than setting a lap time, and for that the EQE is fine. It gets a bit upset occasion- ally but it’s largely an easy companion. Time will tell how it handles swifter progress.
The brakes are dreadful, though. In the 390 miles we’ve done so far, they’re frustratingly mushy and vague, giving me very little faith in them. This is compounded by how they react under a firm right foot, juddering when the tyre crosses a bro- ken patch of tarmac.
As I say, it’s all a bit unclear. In these early days, it feels to me like a car that will deliver easy-going journeys but is unlikely to reveal hidden handling depths or a nifty character trait that’s waiting to be discovered. But maybe there are some surprises from that heritage E-Class DNA in there somewhere.
Logbook: Mercedes-Benz EQE 300 AMG Line Premium Plus (month 1)
Price £86,345
Performance 89kWh battery, e-motor, 241bhp, 7.3sec 0-62mph, 130mph
Efficiency 3.3 miles per kWh (official), 2.1 miles per kWh (tested)
Range 337 miles (official), 240 miles (tested)
Energy cost 20.0p per mile
Miles this month 390
Total miles 470