V is for very minor MPV tweaks
INTERNATIONAL LAUNCH
When your big reveal is an MPV with a 20mm wider grille, you have to have an ace up your sleeve, especially if you’ve flown motoring journalists in from all over the world for the occasion.
That ace is the MercedesBenz EQV, a battery-electric version of the popular V-Class that will make its debut at the Geneva motor show in March.
With its official debut a month away, Mercedes slapped little stickers over our cellphone lenses and hit us with an embargo of March 5, so we can’t tell you much about it, let alone show you any pictures.
It will be the fifth model in Mercedes’s new EQ family, the first being the EQC SUV, which will go on sale in SA in 2020. That will be followed by the EQA, and the Stuttgart manufacturer is also developing two other EQ models to join them.
Back to the new V-Class, which according to a spokesperson for MercedesBenz Commercial Vehicles SA, will go on sale in this country in the third quarter of 2019, probably in August.
Chatting with designer Bertrand Janssen, it’s clear the V has undergone the mildest of facelifts. The chrome strip has been removed around the grille to make it 20mm larger and provide more cooling.
The front bumper has been slightly revised and differs depending on whether you choose Avantgarde, Exclusive or AMG Line trim.
There are 19-inch rims and four new paint colours.
Inside there is a new Nappa leather option as well as a new fascia insert featuring a double pinstripe. The V-Class also gets the turbine-style air vents from the passenger cars
There aren’t a great deal of cosmetic changes to the luxury MPV, which was first launched in 2014 with more than 209,000 examples having been sold worldwide. However, there is bigger news beneath the skin.
The V-Class will get the OM654 diesel engine from other models, pushing out up to 176kW and 600Nm, with a further 30Nm available in overboost mode.
It’s a four-cylinder diesel engine meeting the new Euro 6d emissions standard so, as yet, Mercedes-Benz SA cannot confirm whether the engine will make to this country in the revised model due to concerns over fuel quality.
Rear-wheel drive will be standard, though 4matic allwheel drive is an option, and if the OM654 does come to SA, it will be available with the 9GTronic gearbox for the first time.
Then there are new safety systems. The V-Class will feature quite an extensive list, including Lane Keeping Assist, Active Brake Assist, Crosswind Assist, Blind Spot Assist and Attention Assist. It will also have Pre-Safe collision protection, Active Parking Assist with reversing camera and Distronic Plus active cruise control.
The rest will be familiar, with seating for up to eight people and the option of a full businessclass experience courtesy of a reclining luxury seat. As before, it has been designed to cater for a range of uses, from a family MPV to VIP shuttles.
While the small MPV sector has been dying off, the larger MPVs, including what we might still call minibuses like the Mercedes Vito, Volkswagen Transporter and Ford Transit, continue to be popular with the right customers. The V-Class sits very much at the luxury end of the spectrum and you can expect to see a few of them on the road when it arrives later in the year.