E-ternal recurrence
Whatever else changes, there must always be a four-door Merc to rely on
Mr Benn would understand. He, you’ll recall from your childhood, is the bowler-hatted gent who enlivens suburban mundanity by frequently popping into his local fancy-dress shop and popping out the back exit into another time and another place. Knight. Pirate. Cowboy. And when it all gets a bit much, back to the shop.
Ditto Mercedes saloons, more or less, in my case. That time in Thailand when we hired a bloke with a W124 to drive us many hundreds of miles, stopping whenever we liked the look of a roadside cafe or a hotel, all for pence.
Or that time in China and Mongolia, on the final leg of an E-Class drive from Paris to Beijing. And now Frankfurt, in the new EQE, with Barcelona FC and the entourage of a Thai princess providing some bonus traffic.
What those Mercs have always done is make everything okay. Whether it’s rural roads collapsing in a mudslide, or our Mongolian hosts giving us a choice of chicken feet or chicken beak for lunch, all the bad stuff seems less bad once you’ve scuttled back to the safety of the Benz.
In Frankfurt for the press launch of the EQE, for once I’m glad that a car has so many sensors and cameras, warning me of what I’m about to reverse into, and what’s about to reverse into me. Even in this intense environment, it’s easy to click immediately with the EQE. Adjust the seat, check the mirrors, stalk to Drive, and go. It’s quiet, calm, comfortable, and lively enough.
I’m in the 350+, which will be the first version to arrive in the UK. Other variants with less and with more power will follow, as will a taller SUV version. But this feels like it’s the heartland model – the one that would have been the notquite-entry-level diesel a generation ago, and the middling petrol a generation before that.
It’s not set up for performance, but it can show most traffic a clean pair of heels, and then keep going for 300-odd miles in refined serenity. The 350+ has a single motor, driving the rear wheels, drawing on a 90kWh battery. It makes 288bhp, with 417lb ft of torque. Top speed is 130mph, 0-62mph acceleration is 6.4 seconds. With official energy consumption figures in the region of 3.3-3.9 miles per kWh, range is 356-394 miles on the official WLTP system, depending on spec. The EQE is the second car on the same EVA2 platform as the bigger EQS – the all-electric equivalent of the S-Class. And it shows. The EQS may have grabbed a lot of early headlines with its tech-first approach and its heightened luxury, but it also drives very well for such a big car.
The EQE is, if anything, better. It’s a fast car only in that it makes it easy to maintain high average speeds on longer drives, rather than burning up the ring road. It also benefits from being slightly shorter, with a wheelbase 90mm less than that of the EQS.
It’s roomy, without having the sort of surplus space you might associate with a lapdance limo. The seats are excellent, with plenty of adjustment, so you don’t need to upgrade to pews fitted with complicated massage functions. And it’s quiet – not just from the absence of a combustion engine, but because everything works smoothly, and any external brouhaha is dampened down to a distant rumour.
First verdict
Reassuringly familiar despite being entirely new. With some reservations, an EV that fits into the fine tradition of Merc saloons ★★★★★
It’s a fast car only in that it makes it easy to maintain high average speeds