Recently we were treated with quite a serious arrangement of batteries from Mercedes in the form of various EQ models: the EQA 250, an EQS 450, EQC 400 and this time, the EQB 350.
What’s it like to drive?
The EQS 450 feels like Star Trek’s mother ship, with all the movie-like sound modes in standard form. At full throttle, your middle school son will believe that he’s on his way to hyper space! Mine did.
Performance wise, some EV’s almost feel too powerful, to the point where they can drive you to a state of nausea, if you disrespect the juice pedal. Its 215kW definitely feel quicker than on paper, especially where torque is available virtually immediately due to the nature of electric motors.
EQB or EQC?
This EQB 350 we recently tested is currently the pick of the bunch for me, if I had to choose one for our family. It has a surprisingly big boot and I won’t be surprised if you would actually manage to move all your stuff from an EQC over to the EQB.
Maybe it’s the height of EQB. It comes with well-sized windows, which help you to see the three white Fortuners next to you on the highway, all at once.
Battery and Range
In the week we had it, I did a trip from a business park outside Stellenbosch all the way to Paarden Eiland, Cape Town, to fetch a couple of flutes for our new fire place. All boxed up parts fitted nicely with seats folded down. Driving there, I decided to do a real battery/mileage test to see how much range is left on the current charge, also using Google’s real-time quoted distance.
Sir Google mentioned 51 km’s for the trip, which I followed the exact route of, and this included much of our dreaded N2 highway. As most volt-heads know by now, EV’s are not keen on highway mileage for efficiency, as you have that constant wind buffering your range, even at constant speed. I was following the law at 120km/h, moving towards 130 at times, when I overtook an Uber here and there.
On arrival at my destination, the electric Mercedes had only consumed a real-time value of 48km for that journey, according to what it thought was left in charge. It was quite astounding considering how unpredictable older generation EV’s could be.
Summary
At around R1.5m, it certainly is more practical than more expensive EV’s on the market, and is definitely one of our favourites that we have had in our stable of test cars. It also is one of the more pleasant-looking EV’s, which will be important for most people.
