That includes driving range, as Mercedes estimates the new model will travel 435 miles on a full charge of its battery pack. Alas, that’s on the notoriously optimistic Worldwide Harmonised Light Vehicles Test Procedure (WLTP) cycle and not the more conservative Environmental Protection Agency’s testing procedure used in the United States. Still, AN reports the figure for the EQS betters that of the longest range Tesla Model S tested on the WLTP cycle by 57 miles.
The WLTP’s 378-mile sum for the Model S, however, likely does not reflect the updates made to the Long Range Plus trim, which now achieves an EPA-estimated driving range of 402 miles. Whether Mercedes-Benz’s U.S. arm thinks the EPA-rated range of the EQS will top that of the Model S Long Range Plus, however, remains unresolved. We reached out to Mercedes for comment, but we’re told the car’s official EPA figures “will be communicated closer to launch. “
Thanks to this architecture, expect the production EQS to stuff a big battery between its wheels (we’d guess an approximately 100-kWh pack), while also carrying over the Vision EQS concept’s space-efficient, cab-forward exterior design.
We expect Mercedes to formally pull the wraps off of the EQS before the end of the year, with U.S. sales likely starting late in 2021.
