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2023 Mercedes-EQ EQE SUV Up Close: Is This the Goldilocks Luxury Electric SUV?

2023 Mercedes-EQ EQE SUV Up Close: Is This the Goldilocks Luxury Electric SUV? This really appears to be the year that Mercedes-Benz is bringing the battle to Tesla and the other electric car makers of the world with the full debut of its new sub-brand, Mercedes-EQ.Mercedes now offers luxury electric SUVs in tall, luxurious and open-top sizes, with the entry-level compact EQB, EQS SUV and the latest in the range, the EQE SUV, just unveiled by the automaker. Although it’s the only car I haven’t driven yet, I got a good look at it at a media event in Denver recently. And if you thought an EQS SUV might be too big and an EQB SUV might be too small, well, the 2023 Mercedes-EQ EQE SUV holds a lot of promise as a fully-fledged luxury electric SUV.

2023 Mercedes-EQ EQE SUV Up Close: Is This the Goldilocks Luxury Electric SUV?

It’s official: SUVs look better than sedans

There’s really no way to color this opinion: EQS and EQE sedans look weird. Its swing-forward appearance, with a long sweeping roofline that extends from the front wheels to the trunk, looks quite unlike anything from the automaker – there’s very little Mercedes DNA in the shape, causing fans to make some heartburn. Not so with the SUV versions, which look a lot like their traditional Mercedes showroom counterparts and have a much better family relationship to the brand, I feel. Yes, there are some elements that electric vehicles entail, like the enclosed grille and LED lighting throughout, but the EQE SUV’s two-box design looks simply like a more aerodynamically improved version of the attractive GLE SUV, which is certainly a good thing.

Different strengths and similar weaknesses

Sharing a platform with the EQE Sedan, as well as the EQS Sedan and SUV, is a good thing because it brings with it the outstanding strengths of the new EVA2 architecture: range, power, battery size, and steering and handling versatility. You get the same big battery in an EQE SUV as it does in a sedan, and while we don’t know the SUV’s range yet, if it’s similar to the sedan’s numbers (which we found perfectly acceptable in our car testing), range anxiety wouldn’t be an issue. . Recharging won’t be done either, as the EQE SUV is slated to be able to charge at 170, allowing a 10%-80% charge in just over half an hour, which is also better than average.

Other strengths of this platform include strong acceleration, smooth driving characteristics and impressive agility thanks to the available rear wheel steering function. The amount of game-changing functionality in cars, trucks and SUVs cannot be overemphasized. It improves maneuverability in ways that transform large, lumbering vehicles into agile passengers, able to snake through city streets and perform maneuvers in ways that may seem unexpected but are not. Every car should have this, and it’s great to see that it’ll be on an EQE SUV, too.

2023 Mercedes-EQ EQE SUV Up Close: Is This the Goldilocks Luxury Electric SUV?

One feature that both the EQE SUV and the larger EQS SUV have over their sedan counterparts is the interior: compromised headroom in the front, and even more in the rear, due to the sedan’s blown rooflines not an issue with an SUV. In the EQE SUV, there’s plenty of room in the second row for full-size people to sit comfortably in an upright position, which isn’t quite the case for an EQE sedan. The wheelbase may be two inches shorter, which means legroom may not be as plentiful in an SUV as it is in a sedan, but there’s still plenty to spare, making the EQE SUV the most comfortable choice for hauling passengers.Where the EQE SUV falters a little is in the same places where the rest of the EQE and EQS lineup falters: information boost from explosion of screens, confusing displays that bombard you with fanciful animations and hard-to-decipher controls, and everything touch-sensitive that becomes a major distraction from driving. Combine that with the same oddly raised dashboard and digital instrument cluster that requires you to take a raised driving position, and it looks like the same points we didn’t care about in the EQE Sedan and EQS would still sound good for the EQE SUV. Perhaps alleviating our complaints is the arrival of the EQE AMG SUV, which looks menacing inside and out and should deliver fast enough performance to make us forget these quirks. Can.

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