When your taste in luxury cars runs into SUV territory, the five-door version of the EQS is here to satisfy your need

2023 Mercedes-EQ EQS 450 4Matic SUV AMG Line

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Launched: August 2023 – Price: S$695,888 with COE (Nov 2023)
Five-door, large luxury SUV, seven seats
360hp, double-motor electric drive, 20.5kWh/100km, 610km range

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PROS
Quiet, smooth drive
Seven-seat capacity
Genuinely high-tech feel

CONS
Four-wheel steering takes acclimatising to
Fiddly steering wheel controls

SINGAPORE

The all-electric Mercedes-EQ EQS 450+ arrived in Singapore in late 2022, and it sent a clear challenge to dealers here on how to sell a luxury electric vehicle in Singapore. In these SUV-crazy times however, it was unavoidable that an SUV version of the EQS would be made. So here’s the Mercedes-EQ EQS 450 4Matic SUV.

The funny thing about the official names for cars these days is that they are getting longer, but for simplicity we’ll just call it the EQS SUV from here on.

As you would expect, it’s all the luxury and smoothness of the amazingly high-tech EQS sedan, but in an SUV body style. Yet there’s also another surprise. It’s a seven-seater like the Mercedes-Benz GLS!

With two electric motors that combine for a maximum power output of 360 horsepower, the car is in that place where it’s not powerful enough to be bragging about to well-heeled members of the car club, but just fast enough to outrun smaller hot hatches. You can buy the Mercedes-AMG EQS 53 sedan if you really must have a crazily fast EV, but then, the EQS SUV isn’t just about speed.

The ride comfort and smooth driveability, along with how absolutely quiet it is on the move, is what the EQS SUV sells you, and that it absolutely does.  

For now only the EQS 450 SUV can be bought in Singapore but a much more powerful EQS 580 SUV, with 540 horsepower is available in some other countries.

It’s all Mercedes-EQ design language on the outside, similar to its stablemate, the smaller EQC. If this EQ business is confusing you, here’s the deal: the brand firmly states that all its electric vehicles are branded Mercedes-EQ, and while still a Mercedes-Benz, isn’t actually a traditional Mercedes-Benz.

But one thing that’s clear is that the Mercedes-EQ EVs, from the smallest EQA to this big guy, are cleverly packaged to maximise interior space while cutting down on exterior visual bulk. They don’t look big from the outside, but break out the tape measure and you’ll realise that they are. The EQS SUV is 5,125mm long. Also worth noting is that despite having room for seven it’s 91mm shorter than the sedan variant. 

The interior is all EQS, and the dashboard of the SUV is identical to the sedan. This means that in the more expensive AMG Line variant driven here you get the massive, full-width MBUX hyperscreen dashboard. It’s really three individual touchscreens combined beneath a massive sheet of glass, and the real draw is that the front seat passenger gets his or her own screen, independent of the centre and driver’s instrument cluster.

As an individual add-on, the hyperscreen costs almost S$50,000 before the inclusion of taxes on the options list, but is standard fit in the AMG Line version of the car, which also packs a bunch of other extras including massage seats at the front. At time of writing, it costs S$95,000 more than the base level Electric Art variant. 

The car’s third row, with two seats, is folded into the floor of the boot when not in use. It’s obviously not as spacious in the back, but the car works decently as a five-seater with extra room for another two passengers.

Luggage capacity is rated at 565 litres, but much more packing room can be accessed when the second and third rows are folded away. 

Other fancy bits include a built-in fragrance dispenser built into the air conditioning and the stunning Burmester audio system featuring Dolby Atmos surround sound playback.

With an officially rated kerb weight 2,805kg, this is a very heavy car. Which translates into a stable, but not entirely dynamic drive. The brake pedal takes a little getting used to as it offers up more resistance than usual. 

This requires more effort from your foot to stop the car than expected, but for habitual left-foot brakers, go-kart racers and driving enthusiasts used to track day specials, you’ll find that it’s extremely easy to modulate your stopping power. This is a welcome change from car makers designing the brakes with overpowered assistance to make them feel as soft as the accelerator.

Another much-hidden aspect of EV ownership is that the weight of the car is very hard on tyre wear. Expect to go through tyres twice as quickly, and on a car of this size the tyres don’t come cheap.

Like the EQS sedan, the insulation is excellent and the driving feel is similar enough. It’s composed, well-damped, and drives exactly like how you would expect a luxury SUV of this size to drive like. The car’s active safety systems work unobtrusively for most part, but even though there’s a dedicated off-road mode setting, we would hesitate to really take it off into the mud as its ground clearance isn’t all that high.

It also has four-wheel steering which, like its sedan sibling helps out in tight carparks but takes a while to get used to as the rear end of the car steers along and moves more than you would normally expect.

The quoted range per charge is more than 600km, and Mercedes has that thing about putting large batteries into its EVs to let you drive longer distances compared to its competition. Its local real world power efficiency came up to around 23kWh/100km. 

So, the bottom line is, this is a top-spec Mercedes-EQ, electric SUV with room for seven. It’ll fall far behind in a drag race with a Tesla Model Y, but kicks its rear end in every other aspect from here to eternity.

The AMG Line variant driven here carries a huge sticker price, but even the Electric Art variant offers up much of the same driving experience but without the dashboard-spanning hyperscreen and a big amount less. Archrival BMW has not yet released a production version of its X7 SUV, and Audi’s Q8 e-tron is much too small to be considered its competition, so for now, the EQS SUV stands high on its own on the hill of luxury EV SUVs. 

Mercedes-EQ EQS 450 4Matic SUV AMG Line

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