The all-new Mercedes EQS, the brand’s luxury flagship electric car, boasts up to 770km of range and ultra-fast charging; expected to arrive in Singapore early 2022

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STUTTGART, GERMANY

This is the new Mercedes EQS, a car that Mercedes-Benz says signals the start of a new sustainable future for the Stuttgart carmaker. Slated to debut in Singapore in early 2022, the luxury electric limousine is the first car to be built on Mercedes-EQ’s new modular architecture that will underpin all of the brand’s future large and mid-sized battery electric vehicles (BEVs).

”The EQS is designed to exceed the expectations of even our most demanding customers. That’s exactly what a Mercedes has to do to earn the letter ’S’ in its name. Because we don’t award that letter lightly,” says Ola Källenius, CEO of Daimler AG and Mercedes-Benz AG.

Mercedes-Benz will spin off its electric cars into a sub-brand, Mercedes-EQ, just like sub-brand Mercedes-AMG handles high-performance cars.

Mercedes-EQ will offer two EQS variants at its global roll out: the EQS 450+ and EQS 580. European and North American customers get their cars in August, while deliveries start in January 2022 in China. Singapore is expected to receive the car shortly after.

The EQS 450+ will have a single electric motor driving the real wheels with 328hp and 568Nm of torque, allowing it to go from 0-100km/h in 6.2 seconds. The EQS 580 4Matic meanwhile packs 516hp and 855Nm of torque, giving it a 0-100km/h sprint time of 4.3 seconds.

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Top speed is rated at 210km/h for both cars, while the more powerful EQS 580 also includes all-wheel drive thanks to dual motors, torque vectoring, as well as optional rear-wheel-steering. Further EQS variants will be added to the line-up in time to come, including hot AMG versions that will be announced later this year.

Both models use a 107.8kWh battery, and as such offer similar figures in terms of charging times. Using a standard 11kW AC charger, the EQS can be fully juiced up in 10 hours. However, with a 200kW DC fast charger, the EQS can gain 300km of range with just 15 minutes of charging, or be fully charged in just a little bit over 30 minutes.

Mercedes-Benz also claims that the EQS is capable of a range of up to 770km, enough to get from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur and back on a single charge, although it did not specify which particular version is able to achieve that figure, only stating that it may vary “according to vehicle equipment and configuration.”

The EQS’ liftback-style look, a la Tesla Model S, is by design, as it’s a major factor in giving the car a drag coefficient figure of 0.2Cd. Mercedes-Benz says that this makes the EQS the most aerodynamic production car in the world. Aside from contributing towards efficiency by allowing the car to slice through the air like a hot knife through butter, the slippery shape also enhances refinement by reducing wind noise at speed.

Mercedes-Benz has sought to maximise the capabilities of the Electric Vehicle Architecture (EVA) that underpins the EQS. The car’s dimensions are similar to the S-Class, at 5,216mm long and 1,926mm wide, but it boasts a wheelbase of 3,210mm, 106mm longer than the short wheelbase version of its sibling. As such, Mercedes-Benz claims that the EQS has the most rear legroom of any other EV currently on sale.

Up front, the EQS interior is dominated by what Mercedes-Benz calls the Hyperscreen, which is a one-piece curved screen that stretches across the car’s dashboard. It consists of three separate displays; the driver’s instrument cluster, the central screen that operates the infotainment and climate control systems, and a separate screen for the front passenger.

The Hyperscreen will be an optional extra, and will incorporate the latest version of the MBUX operating system that now allows for over the air software updates, as well as the ability to purchase upgrades to unlock new features as they are rolled out.

Mercedes-Benz also claims that the EQS has been engineered to be capable of Level 3 autonomous driving, meaning you could read a book or watch a movie while the car handles most driving duties, but be ready to intervene immediately in emergency situations, although it is short on details on what features it has included to enable such functionality, or when it will be rolled out to the public. In the meantime, the EQS includes the usual driver assistance features such as adaptive cruise control, lane keeping and lane change assistance, as well as autonomous emergency braking.

Christoph Starzynski, head of Mercedes-EQ, says that the EQS is aimed at “S-Class customers who are more progressive.” This implies that the EQS is targeted at the younger generation of leaders and entrepreneurs, who still like the prestige and luxurious trappings of a high-end Mercedes-Benz, but also demand something that falls in line with their own personal sustainability philosophies. An S-Class for Generation Z, in other words.

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