Mercedes EQS review: the electric rival to the S-Class

What’s both intriguing and a little uncomfortable about the Mercedes EQS is the role it’s been built to play: to grab the baton from the indulgent luxury barge and sprint into a battery-powered future while the current champion is still on the track. Mercedes hasn’t stopped making the S-Class, after all. The latest - and genuinely astonishing - seventh generation has only been on sale for roughly a year. Yet with the EQS, Mercedes is taking aim at something most manufacturers have struggled to achieve for the past 50 years: creating a lasting challenger to what is, quite literally, the S-Class of luxury cars.

The Mercedes EQS 450+ and the long-range promise

It’s a thought that needs time to sink in - say, about eight hours. In the UK, the version of this new flagship with the longest legs also happens to be the cheapest: the EQS 450+, which draws from a huge 107kWh battery and uses a single motor driving the rear wheels.

Mercedes’ official figure is an outrageous 454 miles of maximum range. On a quick glance at a Google Maps route planner, that’s enough to haul yourself between the capitals of Scotland and England without plugging into a public charger - and without being lured by watery service-station coffee or some checkout-counter 3-in-1 phone mount/ice scraper/head torch.

But this “take an EV a very long way” tale isn’t like the usual ones, because I’m not doing a thing to help it along. The air conditioning stays on; the cabin air is purified and fragranced. Phones and kit will be charging. My seat will be heating, massaging and ventilating - sometimes simultaneously.

**Photography: Mark Riccioni

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Nobody drops £100,000 on the ultimate zero-emissions expression of German opulence and expects to spend the trip chasing efficiency with a rank dishcloth on their knees to keep the windows clear. The EQS needs to succeed not merely as a trustworthy electric saloon, but as an exceptional, stress-free, brow-smoothing express. And in 2021, EVs still don’t consistently deliver “stress-free” in the real world.

A smooth start, then a puncture near the border

At first, everything is going brilliantly. I pick up the EQS from Mercedes’ South Midlands HQ. It’s been readied by someone who clearly sprang out of bed with helium in his shoes and a brutally early alarm: the dash confidently shows a borderline-implausible 484 miles of range.

The plan is simple. Blast up to Edinburgh, grab some suitably after-dark photos of what must be the finest night-time cabin ambience on the planet, plug in overnight, then sleep well before a calm run south the next day.

The universe has other ideas. A few hundred metres into Scotland, the EQS’s only left-rear tyre in the UK collapses from fine to pancake in seconds. The sidewall has gone. B*******.

My camera-toting colleagues and I trudge off to the nearest McShelter in Berwick-upon-Tweed in our S400d support car and sulk with purpose. Help turns up a couple of hours later and the tyre gets patched. None of this is the EQS’s doing, but suddenly we’re rushing to reach Edinburgh, I’m knackered and grumpy, and we’ve burned a huge chunk of both shooting time and charging time.

Settled into the EQS’s pillow-like headrests, its quietly butlerish character immediately starts ironing out my mood. It’s difficult to stay wound up in here - the car is simply too imperious to allow you to stew. The dream of an early night and memory cards stuffed with perfectly lit images has faded, but I shut my eyes still convinced I can reach Admiralty Arch - my chosen finish line 397 miles to the south - without so much as glancing at a Greggs.

However, the hurried dash to base has scrambled the numbers. After charging to 100 per cent overnight, the car now forecasts 385 miles. I tell myself it will improve once we settle into a steady cruise, and roll down from the viewpoint by Edinburgh Castle towards the outskirts.

Ever since I drove the EQS I’ve been perturbed that other cars don’t open their doors for me when I touch the handle

Crushing miles on the A1, not chasing hypermiling

To be clear, I’m still not hypermiling. We join the A1 - it’s more direct, if about half an hour slower, and far nicer and more atmospheric than the grim M6 - and sit at 75mph, slipping past lorries and gliding by Nissan Leafs and Jaguar I-Paces clinging anxiously to slipstreams.

The EQS is a spectacular tool for devouring distance. You can point to the reasons - a loping 3.2m wheelbase, record-setting aerodynamic slipperiness, and the absence of Victorian-era combustion interruptions - but spelling it out feels like a magician explaining the method, or a comedian unpacking the joke.

It’s Rolls-Royce Phantom levels of serene. And like that slightly alarming “have I gone deaf?” feeling when a tired parent finally hushes a screaming child on a crowded Airbus, you only realise how exhausting constant droning is once it’s been switched off. An S-Class can’t manage this effect. Not to this degree.

And luxury is more than cold metal, rich leather and tasteful wood - although the EQS is lavishly dressed in all three. Real luxury is saved time and reduced effort. Since driving the EQS, I’ve found myself irrationally annoyed that other cars don’t swing their doors open when I touch the handle. Or pull them shut again when I squeeze the brake pedal. Most EVs, too, fall well short of the EQS for the thoroughness of their charger mapping. Hmm. Park that thought for a moment.

Hyperscreen, range reality, and a timely stop at Hatfield

Once we’re back in England, the efficiency sits at a consistent 3.6 miles per kWh. That’s nearly double what I managed earlier this year in an Audi e-tron SUV, yet it’s still 80 miles shy of the official claim - leaving me running out around Brent Cross rather than arriving on The Mall. I ease the cruise control down to 69mph. I switch the climate control to Eco. A slightly more conscientious sort of indulgence.

Unlike a Rolls-Royce or a Maybach, this is a car you’ll prefer to drive from the front rather than lounge in the back - even though the rear is undeniably spacious, and those sweeping rear pillars wrap you in a private little cocoon. It’s not because the EQS is especially entertaining from behind the wheel: it’s brisk rather than lunch-ruining-oysters rapid, and the suspension prioritises old-school suppleness instead of stamping out body roll at all costs.

No, you’ll want the captain’s chair for access to the Hyperscreen. It’s effectively three separate displays housed under a single 55-inch curve of toughened, anti-glare glass - an ambitious, anti-Tesla mic-drop from Mercedes.

It isn’t flawless yet. The menus are rendered right at the edge of what the processors can comfortably handle, and when you’re on the move, many of the passenger-side functions are greyed out to reduce driver distraction. Still, as a piece of intent from the oldest marque in the business, it’s a breathtaking focal point.

The most important pixels, though, are the ones that throw up a yellow “battery situation critical” warning with 30 miles remaining and 45 miles still to go. I have no desire to strand myself on a major London road late on a Friday afternoon. And I really don’t want the indignity of introducing the EQS to Britain via a breakdown. It warrants better.

I peel off at Hatfield after 379 silent miles. The Hyperscreen promptly finds nearby chargers and filters them by charging speed, whether they’re working, and whether they’re occupied - and it’s right on every count. So even when the trip turned tense, the EQS absorbed the stress. It’s a superb fusion of traditional luxury - which Tesla can only fantasise about - and, finally from Mercedes, a genuine commitment to making a believable electric car.

EVs, by their nature, are best when they’re big, effortlessly quick, heavy and eerily quiet. It follows that the ideal EV isn’t a sports car, an off-roader, or even a family hatchback: it’s a plutocratic saloon. The EQS leans into that advantage completely. Is it good enough to do 400 miles without stopping? Not quite. Is it good enough to take over where the S-Class ends? Without question.