We all know the Brabus shtick by now, right? Take a Mercedes - more or less any Mercedes - and bin its engine. Substitute in a honking great V8 or V12, tuned up till its cam-cover rattle. Add massive alloy wheels, and a relatively subtle bodykit, give it a 350km/h top speed and serve piping hot. Jobs a good 'un, everyone's happy.
How do you tune an EV?
Well, that's not what's happening here. After all, it's pretty hard to add a V8 or V12 engine to a Mercedes-Benz EQS electric saloon, mostly because where are you going to put it? We suppose you could, technically, fit one transversely in the boot, driving the rear wheels...
That's not what Brabus is doing this time, though. Instead, Brabus is embracing the electric revolution and is trying to turn its high-performance tuning skills into that thing that all electric car owners crave - more range.
It kinda makes sense, really. After all, performance is just efficiency turned on its head, so if you reverse the equation, then the same techniques that make a car go faster can be used to make it go farther.
So, what Brabus has done to the EQS is lower it, fit a cleverer aero-friendly bodykit, and aero-enhancing wheels.
According to Brabus: "Ever since Brabus was founded in 1977, a top priority of the developers has always been the development of bodywork components that not only give Mercedes-Benz automobiles a sportier and more elegant appearance but optimize the aerodynamics as well. A strength that the company demonstrated time and again. That is how the Brabus designers secured the automotive refinement specialist's first entry in the Guinness Book of World Records in 1985: A Mercedes sedan of the W 124 series equipped with Brabus aerodynamic-enhancement kit achieved a Cd value of 0.26. A world record at the time and still a value achieved by only a few, far more modern cars today."
Carbon bodykit, Monoblock wheels
So, Brabus has taken the EQS and given it a cleverly-designed bodykit that starts with a new carbon-fibre lip on the front bumper. This not only improves aero resistance but actually dramatically reduces front-axle lift - by 100 per cent no less. The lip and the carbon trim for the side air intakes also improve airflow to the brakes and the car's cooling systems.
There are more carbon elements ahead of the rear wheelarches, and there's a carbon boot spoiler and rear diffuser, all of which reduce rear-end lift by 40 per cent. As well as looking rather subtly more muscular than the standard EQS.
Then there are the wheels. These are not mere off-the-shelf alloys but 20-to-22-inch 'Monoblock' wheels designed specifically for the EQS by Brabus. The ones in most of these photos are the 22-inch Z ten-spoke design, while the shot take in the wind tunnel features the an even more aero-friendly disc design (that's the one we'd have...).
An extra 51km of range
Brabus has also designed a 'plug-and-play' electronic control module for the EQS' air suspension, which lowers it by 20mm at the front and 15mm at the rear. As anyone who's followed F1 this year knows by now, dropping the ride height of a car can have a massive effect on its aero performance, and so it proves. Lower drag means less resistance overall, and so Brabus claims that the EQS, fitted with its aero enhancements, is 7.2 per cent more aero-efficient (especially at high Autobahn and motorway speeds) and has a 7.0 per cent greater range. A quick back-of-the-envelope calculation shows that 7.0 per cent of Mercedes' claimed EQS range of 730km (there or thereabouts) is 51. So an extra 51km of range, which is quite a bit. Admittedly the EQS is hardly short of range in standard form, but now you can have a bit more (and 51km can make the difference between getting home in one go or having to stop and charge en-route) and still have the cool factor of a Brabus kit.
Brabus will also tweak the interior for you, including scuf plates backlit with the Brabus logo, pedals made of aluminium or carbon, floor mats, and even e velour liner for the boot. Brabus also offers a bespoke leather upholstery service, should your wallet be deep enough.
Is this the future of vehicle tuning? Taking the go-faster expertise of old and turning it to mining more efficiency from batteries and e-motors? While still looking cool? Sounds like a good deal to us...