Mercedes has revealed what might be the most important new car of 2021 at the IAA motor show in Munich - it's the all-electric EQE that will go on sale in Ireland in March of 2022.
Based on the Mercedes EQS platform
As the badge suggests, this is to all intents and purposes an electric E-Class, although under that swooping body shape there's actually the same Mercedes EQ architecture as used in the recently launched Mercedes EQS electric luxury car.
The EQE is, of course, smaller and slightly lower-slung than the big EQS, with a wheelbase that's some 88mm shorter. Even so, the EQE should have its conventional E-Class brother well and truly beaten when it comes to interior space, thanks to the battery being packaged under the floor. There's 80mm more legroom than in the E-Class, and 27mm more shoulder-room. Oddly, though, the boot is a little small at just 430 litres.
That battery is a big 'un - a 90kWh unit, which in the EQE 350 will drive a 292hp, 530Nm rear-mounted electric motor. Mercedes quotes power consumption of between 15.7- and 19.3kWh per 100km. All EQEs will be launched with rear-wheel drive initially, when the first cars hit the market in early 2022, but 4Matic two-motor four-wheel-drive models will follow. Mercedes says that a second variant will launch alongside the EQE 350 but is being cagey about details on that second version for now...
Range of up to 660km
Thanks to the big battery, and the EQE's slippery body shape, you should be able to squeeze some pretty impressive ranges out of an EQE. Merc says that the EQE 350 will do between 545km and 660km on one charge on the WLTP test (although that's a little less than Audi is targeting for the incoming A6 e-tron, which in fairness hasn't been through a WLTP test yet).
The EQE can be charged at speeds of up to 170kW, which allows you to add as much as 250km of extra range in just 15 minutes of charging (assuming you can find a fast enough charger, of course...).
As with other Mercedes EQ models, you'll be able to set how strong you want the EQE's regenerative braking to be, using paddles behind the steering wheel, to shift between D, D-. D+ and D-auto modes.
The single electric motor should be exceptionally quiet, even by EV standards - Mercedes says that "the magnets are arranged inside the rotors in an optimised way to minimise noise, vibration and harshness" and as if that wasn't enough, there's a sound-absorbing foam surrounding the motor.
Into all that silence, Mercedes can add its own generated sound. Spec your EQE with the full-on Burmester sound system and there are two interior driving sounds - Silver Waves and Vivid Flux. Oh, and there's a third one - 'Roaring Pulse' - that can be downloaded at a later date, along with over-the-air software updates. It all sounds a bit silly, but you'd better get used to this sort of thing...
Optional air suspension
A standard, the EQE gets conventional suspension, four-link front and multilink rear, that's essentially lifted from the new S-Class. Optionally, you can spec it with Airmatic air suspension, which comes with adaptive dampers as well as air springs. There's also an optional rear-wheel-steering setup that knocks two metres off the turning circle, dropping it to 10.7 metres.
The dashboard of the EQE has also been lifted from the bigger EQS and uses a version of that car's massive MBUX 'Hyperscreen' digital cockpit. That means a 1.4-metre-wide dashboard panel that appears to be all-screen, but is actually three screens - each one more than 12 inches across. One is the driver's instrument panel, another the central infotainment screen.
A third is positioned directly in front of the front-seat passenger, and even allows them to watch videos and streaming movies and TV - but there's a safety catch; the same eye-tracking software that forms the basis for the driver drowsiness monitor also watches to see if the driver is sneaking a peek at the passenger screen and dims the picture if needed. Thankfully, for technophobes, there will be basic versions of the EQE without the Hyperscreen.