Mercedes has given its flagship EQS a baby brother…the EQE 350. But don’t worry, it’s not all cuddly and light, because AMG has gotten its hands on it now! Yeah, and I’m talking 1,000Nm torque! Stay tuned for the details!
Design & Styling
What do you make of the design and styling of the EQE? It’s basically just the same as the EQS to us, only a little smaller. There are a couple of subtle differences. Like at the front, you get vertical strips in the grille, as opposed to the tiny little Mercedes stars in the EQS. There’ll be some different options for wheels but all in all, it’s the same. Around the back, there are a couple of alterations to the trim at the lower end. But to be honest, how many people would spot the differences?
I can’t help but think that they should have made a few changes to distinguish it from the EQS a bit more. I’m not saying that the EQS is not a good looking car. I’m just wondering does it devalue the EQS by having a baby twin? Would a different design help welcome more people into the Mercedes fold a bit? And I don’t know about you, but I think I prefer the bit of flair from the Polestar 2. Let us know what you think in the comment.
Inside there are some nice updates if you’re splashing out on the AMG variants, with a different steering wheel. You can also upgrade to the hyper screen that you get in the EQS.
Dimensions
Ok. So we just called the EQE the EQS’s baby twin…whatever that means! But what is the difference in size, and how does it fit in with the competition? Although the EQE is smaller it’s still more closely in competition with the Tesla Model S in terms of the footprint of the car. At 4.95 metres long, it’s a much bigger car than the Model 3 which comes in at 4.7 metres. If you look at height, width and length, it’s almost identical to the Model S.
So it must have a massive amount of storage, then? Well, no, not really. It has 430 litres in the boot. It’s still beaten by the Model 3 in terms of pure trunk capacity, but it’s certainly dwarfed by the Model S!
Performance
Ok, let’s move on to performance because I’m itching to talk about the AMG variant!
But first, the entry-level EQE 350 has 215kW of power and 530Nm of torque, so it won’t be a slouch off the line. It’ll hit 62mph in 6 seconds, although we suspect it’ll make it a tiny bit faster when it hits reviewers' hands properly! Top speed is limited to about 100mph. So it won’t fare particularly well against the Teslas here, or even the faster Polestar 2 or Mach-e options out there.
But it starts to get tasty when AMG get their hands on the car. And what have they done with it? We have to break this part down into two sections…the AMG EQE 43 and the AMG 53.
The AMG 43 gets twin motors for a total of 350kW of power and a whopping 858Nm of torque. And presuming you have more than 50% state of charge, you can do the 0-62mph sprint in 4.2 seconds. Now that’s an interesting figure because it’s actually a fraction of a second faster than the Tesla Model 3 Long Range.
But things get even more heated if you splash out on the AMG 53 and option the Dynamic Plus Package with all the bells and whistles! Now you have different motors specially developed that provide 505kW and 1,000Nm torque. And presuming you have a 70% state of charge then you can do the 0-62 sprint in 3.3 seconds. At that stage, you’re pretty much identical to the Model 3 Performance. But as we alluded to earlier, this car is closer in its footprint to the Model S and is almost identical in acceleration to the Long Range variant.
But we can hear the Tesla fans now shouting PLAID at us! Yeah…there’s nothing to touch that in terms of speed!
But we don’t want to get bogged down in simple straight-line figures, because there’s a lot more to a car’s performance than bursting off the line. The AMG variants come with upgraded brakes and adaptive air suspension that will really improve its performance when driven hard. And if you want you can option the bigger wheels and even stronger carbon-ceramic brakes.
Ok, phew…I need to take a rest after all that talk of 0-62 and cars with 1,000Nm torque!
Battery & Range & Charging
What about batteries, range and charging?
The EQE has a 100kWh battery, 90.6 of which is usable. Now that’s a tasty buffer, and maybe Mercedes could have given us access to slightly more than that. On that point, OTA updates to the Battery Management System will be possible. So we may see some range improvements once the cars are out on the road and we get more real-life data on battery performance.
But what does that mean for range? WLTP figures say that we will see a range of between 545km and 660km, or about 340 and 412 miles. It’s hard to say at the moment but we reckon around the 340 to 350-mile mark is where the EQE will settle in the real world. It’ll be extremely slippery through the air as it also has an incredible drag coefficient of .2 which is beaten really only by the long-gone EV1.
As you would expect, the range will drop a good bit if you’re plumping for the AMG variants of the EQE. You can take off about 50 to 60 miles of range for the 43 and 53 variants. But that’s fair enough as these cars are not made for range due to wheel sizes and how the car is set up for performance.
When you want to charge the EQE, performance is ok. A few years ago we would have been quite impressed, but the technology is advancing so fast now! 11kW AC charging comes as standard, but you can option 22kW AC. On DC, 170 is the number we’re given for peak charging. Now that’s not hugely impressive with even the Model 3 peaking at just over 200kW. Although we’re yet to see how the charging curve fares in the real world. But it’s worth saying that there’s a nice buffer there and also battery preconditioning if you’re navigating to a charger! So we expect it to be quite decent.
Summary
We haven’t got detailed pricing on the AMG variants yet, but suffice to say…they’ll be expensive! Let’s try to get some perspective though. The entry-level EQE will cost around £60,000 where I am in the UK, which is very close to the Model 3 Performance price. But of course, pricing will be different all over the world depending on import duties, incentives, and grants.
And if you want to fully spec out the AMG 53 you could probably add around 50% of the basic EQE price! And at that stage, you’re probably more expensive than a Model S Long Range!
So what do you make of the EQE overall, and which one would you be buying? For me, I’m probably sticking with the EQE 350. Don’t get me wrong, it’s nice to have that bit of power in the AMG variants for when you plant your foot…but for me range is king! And if the EQS is anything to go by then the EQE will be pretty handy also!
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