Electric switch
Mercedes CEO Dieter Zetsche says this car matters because CO2 reduction does. He reckons “mankind’s greatest achievement” is the Paris climate accord. As the conversation moves on, I fail to make the obvious riposte. Tesla is a company that has dedicated itself to decarbonising the car, whereas the EQC has a problem: green-minded customers won’t want to buy their carbon-light car from the guys who build the G63 AMG. But then, Tesla seldom makes money. Mercedes is old enough to have learned that selling environmentally catastrophic V8-engined SUVs to the short-sightedly selfish is good business. It generates the profits necessary to finance the all-electric EQC.
Precisely because the EQC comes from a different philosophical and business starting point than the Tesla Model X, it has turned out very different: the electric car you’d expect a petrol-car company to make. Jaguar might have looked outward when making the I-Pace, but Mercedes has looked in. The EQC is resolutely normal. Good, but really normal.
On the road, awesome refinement is its main appeal. Low-speed motor whine is absent, and high-speed tyre and suspension noise are also brilliantly suppressed. It’s fabulously serene. The ride isn’t pillow-soft but it does filter out secondary harshness really nicely. But it’s a two-and-a-half-tonne car and feels it, especially given the damping – which isn’t adaptive – is set soft. Chuck it around bends and it rolls and pitches and generally
comes over all calm-down-madam on you. Just ease off and stretch the range. Acceleration is really solid if you ask, thanks to front and rear motors of 204bhp each. But the impression comes more from their instant wits than it does from the rate of acceleration, which is tethered by the mass.
The cabin is normal-Merc, except for some progressive rubberised fabric stuff on the dash, and signature-copper vents. Facing you is the company’s vast twin-screen edifice. The dash and centre tunnel are bulkier than most other EVs. Outside as well as in, it has completely orthodox proportions.
There’s a reason. Underneath, it’s basically a GLC, using the same suspension and most of the underbody. To make sure it behaves in the same protective way in a crash, it even has steel-tube replicas of the combustion car’s engine block, except here they mostly enclose fresh air. So you don’t get the airy cabin, flat floor or distant dash of a Tesla or Jaguar.
The chief engineer also gladly admits that because it’s thus adapted, it’s 150kg heavier than it would be if entirely bespoke. He claims weight doesn’t greatly affect range because you can regenerate more from a heavy car – here it’s up to 240bhp feeding back to the battery. What matters is low drag, down to Cd 0.28.
Just as well, since the battery doesn’t have that much capacity, at 80kWh gross (Jaguar 90, Audi 95, Tesla up to 100). Mercedes are absolutely the safety people, so they’ve made the EQC’s battery narrower than rivals. It
doesn’t spread right out to the sills but instead has about 10cm of extra impact-absorbing structure either side. The range is 231–259 miles WLTP, depending on wheels and running boards, which actually improve matters.
I’m driving in Norway. It’s the EV capital of the world, where petrol cars are taxed high but electric low, and you can drive EVs in bus lanes and park them free. Last year, a third of all cars sold there were pure EV. Shows the power of stick and carrot. Most of my trip is flattish, has low traffic and 50mph speed limits. I can’t think of a kinder test for EV range, and, sure enough, I’m getting close to the rated figure.
In British conditions and faster motorways I’d not be optimistic of getting much beyond 200 miles, just as we’ve found with those others. But if you can find an ultra-rapid DC charger the EQC can do 10 per cent to 80 per cent in 40 minutes, peaking at 110kW incoming. The onboard AC charger is 7.3kW, which is competitive but not outstanding.
Merc really is committed to EVs. In future years it will have a bespoke electric platform. But by using an adapted GLC this time around it’s saved investment. Perhaps more important, the EQC goes down the same production line. If lots of people want it they can make lots, and if few do, then the line swaps back to GLCs.
That makes sense for Mercedes, but for the rest of us it turns the EQC into a lost opportunity for visual proportions, cabin space and agility. It’s beautifully finished yet half-baked at the same time.
“ON THE ROAD, AWESOME REFINEMENT IS ITS MAIN APPEAL”