It's 2022. I'm lumbering through a rock-crawling trail in Joshua Tree National Park, straddling the border of the Mojave Desert. It is a beautiful, stunning place to explore, and my tired old Lexus LX470 is leaving its mark. It's dripping black CV axle grease all over the rock upon which it's perched. I wipe as much as I can off, and press on.
It's 2025. I'm in Anza Borrego State Park, a beautiful, open park twice the size of Joshua Tree, with open camping and little supervision. I see beautiful rock formations, feel crunchy desert sand under my boots. I smell anti-freeze. My 230,000-mile, $2,500 Chevy Tahoe has parted ways with all of its coolant. I'm stuck until I patch it, and the desert is now watered with the bright-orange, toxic soup that keeps my 5.3-liter V-8 from melting its heads. I'm averaging 13 mpg.
It's 2025 again, two weeks later. I'm in Cleveland National Forest, heading up Bear Valley Trail in silence. The ground crunches under 6,801 of German steel. The Mercedes G 580 With EQ Technology, or the electric G-Wagen for short, is no hippie steed. Its tank turn mode still rips up the dirt. Its weight demolishes tires, leaving microplastics in the air. Its battery still takes coolant, and its axles are still greased. But with no tailpipe emissions, no fuel lines, no V-8 thunder, it treads more gently on this place.
That matters to me. If you really love off-roading, it should matter to you, too.
Gallery: Mercedes G 580 W/EQ Technology
Cognitive Dissonance
Scott Fitzgerald famously wrote that "[t]he test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function."
If that's true, any off-roader possesses first-rate intelligence. Because to love wheeling, as I do, you have to love being outside. But to do it properly, you need a big, thirsty truck, one that's likely too beaten-up to have all of its emissions systems in functioning order. Or, in the case of my Tahoe—an extremely mild option, suitable only for basic forest roads—emissions equipment that works as intended, but still spits out CO2 like an 1800s steel mill.
Evidence of this dissonance abounds. Go to any rock-crawling trail and you'll see evidence of fluid leaks, scrapes from trucks, trampled plant life and all the rest. Off-roaders try to be good stewards of the land, and most are, but there's no truly clean way to pilot a 5,000-lb gas-burner through a forest.
This is not a moral judgment. The paradox extends beyond cars. The most sustainable thing you can do for the planet is to never go anywhere, yet not seeing any of its splendor up close seems gray to me. A virgin meadow can remain that way only if you don't hike through it, and yet I find it hard to resist the temptation. Quantum mechanics teaches us that you cannot observe something with affecting it, and that holds true in nature, too.
You have to draw your own line, then, and I've tried to. But it's messy business, not one that can be solved by tribal membership or political proclamations alone. My friends who spend the most time outdoors and care the most about public lands aren't EV owners.
I myself have struggled to part with my old Tahoe. While it destroys the Earth it also is my only way to reach some of my favorite places on Earth. Electric alternatives cost too much and rely on charging stations that often don't exist in the backcountry. I am not trying to tell you that this is a solved problem, or one that necessitates you spending $80,000 on a Rivian tomorrow.
What I am telling you is a simple truth: It's better.
EV off-roading does not solve the core paradox of the hobby. Producing an EV is itself a nasty business, just like the nasty business of refining gasoline. But in a world where we won't give up our love of exploring to preserve it for the next generation, I argue we must work with the lesser of two evils. An EV does not affect the climate as much as a gas car. It relies on a simpler drivetrain, with fewer opportunities for leaks, spills and pollution. It does not belch poison. It does not disrupt the forest with the endless clatter of explosions from its engine.
It is not a good answer. But is a better one.
There's a payoff for you, too: It's more fun, too.
The Experience You Want
There's the moral issue with that paradox I discussed. But there's a practical one, too. I come out to the desert to enjoy nature, and in my Tahoe there's always something in the way: noise. I want to hear the birds, or the rustling of the brush or the beautiful silence itself. And that's just not possible. The clatter of the truck drowns it out, leaving only your lunch stops or camp sites for true, perfect quiet.
An Electric G-Class or a Rivian does not solve this entirely, as their pedestrian-warning sounds cannot be disabled (Free idea: add a truly silent, off-road only mode). But it replaces the rickety clatter with a gentle hum, and stops altogether whenever the vehicle isn't moving forward. This means every time you slow down or stop, you can drink in the sound. Above 5 mph you won't hear the powertrain anyway, as the tire noise on a dirt trail drowns it out. So when I took my G-Wagen press loaner up Bear Valley, I didn't just see hawks, I heard them.
I also didn't have to listen to or feel the engine strain against gravity, fighting a torque curve better built for the highway. Be it a G-Wagen, F-150 Lightning or Rivian, any EV truck I've driven just hops right over obstacles without protest. There's no running through the rev range in low range. Just seamless crawling, beckoning me forward.
There's less slip in the G-Wagen, too, as its four individual motors can respond individually to changing conditions. That requires some clever software, surely to be refined over time, but even the first draft is exceptional. There was no protest from the truck over even the slickest rock, and any slip in one wheel was instantly overcome by the combined torque of the others.
Seasoned off-roaders will debate over whether individual wheel motors or dual motors with locking differentials are actually better for smooth off-road operation. I've heard both arguments. Yet only an EV offers the flexibility of choice there. No gas truck ever offered this sort of precise control, and any wheel-specific torque usually relied on either brakes or complicated torque-vectoring setups, neither of which is the sort of simple, consistent solution you want in the backcountry.
Simplicity, really, is the key benefit. The truck needs a pattery ack and a motor to move. The rest is luxury. So EVs present incredible opportunities in terms of fault tolerance. Batteries may degrade, but they almost never fail in a way that'll leave you stuck. If you have four motors, there's no reason why the failure of one, two or even three needs to strand you. When your power split is managed by separate motors, there's no transfer case to worry about. There's no low-hanging oil pan either, and the battery pack shielding of even a road-going EV is strong enough to handle even the toughest impact. Plus a battery is far more capable of continuing on with a cooling issue than any engine. Most importantly: These systems are not as mechanically interconnected, meaning there's less opportunity for a cascading failure.
That's the future I see. Make no mistake, we're not there yet. Compared to the hundred-off years we've had refining internal-combustion products, it's no wonder that gas options are generally better-developed for niche applications. There's no EV Jeep Wrangler, no 4Runner equivalent that can compete on cost.
That's why I don't expect any hard-core off-roaders to switch over immediately. I'm not asking you to throw out your 3rd-gen 4Runner or Jeep XJ. But I want you to start thinking not just about the existing trade-offs of electric off-roading, but the unbelievable possibilities. Look at the way a four-motor G-Wagen can pirouette in place. Note how it can reverse an inside wheel during sharp corners, tightening your line. Think about how 1,000 lb-ft of torque would affect your crawling capabilities. Imagine actually listening to the forests you drive through.
This is all possible. Hell, it's already here. Once it comes down in price, and the charging network improves, the off-roading world will eventually realize one simple truth. EV off-roading isn't going to be as good as ICE off-roading. It's going to be much, much better.
Contact the author: Mack.Hogan@insideevs.com.
