The EQS is a technological showcase for the electric future of Mercedes-Benz. It has a generous EV driving range, an ultra-high-tech infotainment screen, and a plethora of advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS). It’s tantalizingly quick, has an impressive-looking cabin, and rides in comfort and serene silence down the road. It’s also the most expensive vehicle Consumer Reports has ever purchased, with an as-tested price of nearly $136,000. Even so, we came away frustrated with the EQS’s super-distracting controls and odd-feeling brakes, both of which left us questioning if we’d really want to live with this car on a daily basis.
Rear-wheel-drive 450+ models have a single electric rear motor that produces 329 horsepower, while the high-end 580 4Matic delivers 516 hp through a motor on each axle, which gives it all-wheel drive (hence, the “4Matic” terminology). Both versions have a 108-kilowatt-hour battery pack, with EPA-estimated driving ranges of 350 miles and 340 miles, respectively, allowing days of use between plugging in. We saw 380 miles in our own 70-mph highway range test with the 4Matic model. It takes about 12.5 hours to charge the battery from near-empty on a 240-volt (Level 2) connector—that’s longer than most EVs, due to the car’s large battery. Owners can benefit from the EQS’s 9.6-kW onboard charger, which is compatible with a 40-amp home-charging unit; this can make for slightly quicker charging—figure on about 30 miles of range per hour of charging vs. about 20 miles.
When traveling, drivers can take advantage of the EQS’s maximum 200-kW acceptance rate that allows for quick DC fast charging in public venues. Mercedes says the battery can go from a 10-percent state-of-charge to 80 percent in 31 minutes. We gained 80 miles of range during a 10-minute stopover at an Electrify America network charger when the battery was about half-full.
Thanks to its healthy horsepower, along with a prodigious 631 lb.-ft. of torque, the 580 4Matic we tested zipped from 0 to 60 mph in just 4 seconds, equaling the time set by the Porsche Taycan 4S. You’ll need to step up to the uber-high-performance EQS AMG and its 649 hp to get within range of the blisteringly-quick Tesla Model S, though, which ran from 0 to 60 mph in just 3.2 seconds in our testing.
Despite its portly 5,800-pound curb weight, the EQS 580 proved nimble through corners, with quick steering and little body roll thanks to standard air suspension with adaptive dampers. It changes direction much more quickly than you would think for such a large and heavy car, aided in part by the four-wheel-steering system, which turns the rear wheels in the same direction as the front wheels at higher speeds, and up to 10 degrees in the opposite direction at lower speeds. That sensation can feel bizarre, though, in certain scenarios, such as how quickly the car changes direction when you turn into a parking lot. But it endows the EQS with an impressively tidy turning circle.
Even by EV standards the cabin is ultra-hushed, and the EQS rides smoothly and comfortably down the road, barring the particularly nasty pothole that can feel like it punches right through—a result of the low profile, range-optimizing summer tires.
We didn’t like the mushy-feeling brakes at all, as they fail to give the driver sufficient confidence that the big Mercedes will stop quickly enough when you need it to. The pedal also moves on its own if the driver puts the car into the strongest regenerative braking mode available (regenerative braking slows the car while sending energy back to help recharge the battery)—we found that particularly eerie.
The front seats are comfortable, but you feel like you need to peer up and over the tall driver’s instrument-panel shroud to see down the road, and the super-sloping hood means you can’t tell where the front of the car ends. Plus, some drivers found that the steering-wheel rim cuts off the upper part of the gauge display.
The rear seat is disappointing for such a large car—there’s lots of legroom, but headroom is tight and the overly-upright seatback isn’t very comfortable. The conventional Mercedes S-Class offers superior rear-seat comfort.
Fit and finish is meticulous throughout the cabin and we love the turbine-like, high-quality air vents in the dash. Mercedes’ dash-spanning, highly-configurable “Hyperscreen” even includes a touchscreen display for the front passenger. The navigation system is overlaid with augmented reality, merging the GPS navigation system with a front camera view. Natural voice commands helped by artificial intelligence are designed to cater to the owner’s every whim.
But in typical Mercedes fashion of late, the controls require a massive learning curve, and few tasks are simple to complete—that it takes five steps to adjust the driver’s seat lumbar support through the infotainment screen is preposterous. Other tasks, whether performed with the steering-wheel controls or the touchscreen, suffer from small buttons or require a high level of finger dexterity that makes the process very distracting while driving.
Forward collision warning, automatic emergency braking with pedestrian and cyclist detection, blind spot warning, rear cross traffic warning, reverse automatic emergency braking, lane centering assistance, lane departure warning, lane keeping assistance, and adaptive cruise control all come standard.