NEW Mercedes EQS Review: REST IN PEACE S-Class?

The S-Class, the flagship in the Mercedes range. If you want comfort, presence and refinement, that is the car you go to. But maybe not for much longer because Mercedes, like everyone else, is having to go electric and therefore they've had to develop a luxury product powered not by ice, but by something called batteries. This is the Mercedes EQS, the electric alternative to the S-Class. It promises high levels of comfort, refinement and advanced technology. It should cost somewhere north of £80,000, has a near 500 mile driving range and recharges in minutes, representing a huge leap towards the future. It doesn't look very futuristic though, does it? It's a bit of a weird shape, the EQS. It's got this kind of bubble look to it. I'm not sure I'm a fan of it. If you look at the S-Class, it's sleek, it's got presence. If three of these rock up, you think, I don't know, some Italian gangsters or mafia or the head of a small republic has just rocked up. Whereas if three of these turn up, you think, well, you wouldn't even look twice, would you? But there is a reason for this design. Apparently, the EQS is the most aerodynamically efficient car that's ever been production built. It has a drag coefficient of 0.20, so it's even more slippery than the S-Class. It's about 100 millimetres shorter and 200 millimetres narrower than the S-Class, so takes up less space on the road, but the wheelbase is nearly identical. It's available in an unusual two-tone paint finish or a single colour and comes with a choice of 20, 21 or 22 inch low drag wheels. It does have a very interesting front. This front end is completely smooth with dozens of Mercedes stars all across it. Plus, it's got this full width light bar at the front as it does at the back and these headlights are completely digital. Apparently, they use 1.3 million micro mirrors, so they combine to have a total resolution of 2.6 million pixels. Now, I know pixels sounds like marketing nonsense, but these can actually project images onto the road, icons to warn you of trouble ahead, for example, roadworks or pedestrians. You can't use it in the UK because it's not allowed, but in Germany, that system is very effective. Unfortunately, there is no front trunk on the EQS. This doesn't open at all for reasons I'll explain later. So, how do you perform any maintenance on the EQS? Well, the only thing you can do is add screen washer and that is done at the side. You basically press this here, that folds out and you pour in your screen wash. Very futuristic. As for the doors, well, it's got the same pop-out door handles as the S-Class, but it goes a step further. It will actually open automatically for you to let you in. Then, when you get inside, to close it, you press the brake pedal and the door will close automatically. What a flex. Once I'm in, I can, if I want to, open all of these doors automatically using the screen. Look at that. It's just absolutely ridiculous. Oh, and by the way, it goes another step further. If I want to, I can even open the boot. So, let's do that as well since we're here. Before I show you the interior of the EQS, let me show you what it has to compete with. The cabin of the S-Class is majestic with a 12.8-inch OLED infotainment display, fingerprint and face-sensing technology for logging in, some of the best ambient lights in the game and even a 3D driver display that makes it look as if the graphics are floating in front of your face. But even this isn't as advanced as the interior of the EQS. Look at this. You hear that? Ladies and gentlemen, this is an absolute spaceship. The star of the show in the EQS is this enormous display, which Mercedes calls the Hyperscreen. It's a 55-inch display that stretches from A-pillar to A-pillar, although it's not really a 55-inch screen. It's actually three separate displays. The first one is your driver information screen, which is directly in front of you and can be controlled using the capacitive buttons on your steering wheel. The second is a passenger display, which lets your passenger control various aspects of the car as well as media playback. So they can watch daytime TV, films from a USB, for example, but that only works if they're sat in the seat. The third display is this brilliant central screen. This is OLED, by the way, and it's super crisp, super sharp and gives you access to all of the car's main functions. What you'll notice at first is that all of your heating, ventilation and climate controls are down the bottom. They're permanently there, which means that you always know where to go when you're adjusting the temperature. If you adjust the temperature up, then you get ambient lighting around the sides and up here on the dashboard turning red. If you adjust it down, they turn blue, just like you get on the S-Class. It's not the simplest system in the world. It's not as good as having physical buttons, but it's still pretty cool. The rest of it works in a similar way to the S-Class, but with a couple of key differences. There's a one layer philosophy, which means that the UI presents information that it thinks you should be seeing. So I've been using these comfort doors quite a lot today and it puts up an icon because it thinks that I might need to access that because that's something that I do quite regularly. So if I press that, then I get an instant shortcut to opening and closing all the doors. Apart from that, there's also an EQ menu, which gives you access to all your local charging stations, parking spaces, restaurants and all your charging options. For example, you can tell the car to only charge up at night when your particular energy costs are lower or to preheat and pre-cool the car before you get inside. As for the rest of the cabin, I think it's pretty cool actually. You've got this floating centre console design with a sliding door here for a couple of cup holders, two USB ports and a wireless charging mat. Again, a central binnacle down here with two more USB ports and another charging mat. Plus down here, another little storage area with two more USB ports to go with the two USB ports that are in the back. So all in all, very practical, very cool looking and filled with tech. I will show you the back in just a second, but first I want to tell you what this car drives like. But before I do that, I need to refresh my memory with the S-Class. Okay, the S-Class, the absolute daddy of the luxury segment. It's a wonderful thing, it really is. It's quiet, it's refined, it's smooth and it feels very special. It's the S500 to be specific and I love the suspension in this thing. It scans the road ahead for any imperfections and slackens off the air suspension to make the ride as supple as possible. These seats are outrageously good as well. Super comfortable and you've got these huge pillows behind you. You almost want to fall asleep in this car. I won't, but that's the kind of vibe in the S-Class. It's just nice. Also, the seats have these active bolsters on either side. So when you go around a left-hand bend, the bolsters on the right will actually push you back into place. Or if you go around a right-hand bend, the bolsters on the left push you across to counteract that movement in your body. It's almost like you've got a butler behind you, cuddling you and just pushing you back into the place where you need to be. The steering is super light. Gotta give a shout out to these massaging seats as well. They use speakers in the seats to vibrate and rumble your bottom. It sounds a bit rude, but it actually feels really nice. This, you gotta say, is right up there when it comes to luxury. However, and I said this when I reviewed the new S-Class back in December 2020, the one thing holding it back is the internal combustion engine. It kind of compromises the whole thing. You feel vibration through the steering wheel, through the pedals, through the floor, through your body, and it's not nice. I mean, it's okay. It's acceptable if that's all you've ever known. But now we know that electric cars are a lot smoother, you can't help but think this thing will be made better with an electric motor. In fact, that's what I said. I said even a budget electric car is slightly more refined than a high-end expensive Mercedes S-Class, and that what the S-Class needed was batteries and electric motors. Was I right? Today's the day we find out. Yep, I was right. No beating around the bush. The difference is night and day. The EQS has all of the comfort and the luxury that you might expect from the S-Class, but it takes it a step further by massively improving the level of refinement. It's so smooth. It's unbelievably smooth in here. You know, it doesn't rely on an internal combustion engine. It doesn't rely on pistons slamming into cylinders, causing explosions in order to move, and that means there are no vibrations. There's no unwanted noise. It's a cocoon of luxury. Honestly, if I'd never driven an EQS, I would have thought the S-Class was pretty much as good as it gets, but by hopping into an EQS, you immediately feel the difference. It's night and day. The S-Class almost feels like steampunk technology. It almost feels a bit like a tank, whereas this just feels like a spaceship, and it's so quiet in here, man. It's unbelievable. They use a lot of old-school noise reduction techniques. So, for example, loads of sound-deadening material inside this new platform, double-glazed windows, and I've already spoken about that low drag coefficient, but there's also a lot of new-school techniques that they've applied in order to keep things as quiet as possible. For example, the Burmester audio system inside this car works a bit like a giant pair of noise-cancelling headphones. It basically detects the unwanted low-frequency sounds around you, the rumbling that you get in a normal internal combustion engine car, and then plays opposite frequencies in order to cancel those out. So the end result is almost like the world has been put on mute. It's mad. If you're not a fan of complete silence, then you're in luck, because Mercedes have put in a couple of sound profiles that allow the EQS to make a little bit of noise while you drive, and to access that, all you need to do is dive into the menu system and click on the Sound Experience Adjustment. When you do that, you can choose between two sound modes in this model. So there's Silver Waves. If I press that and accelerate, you hear that? And if I brake, it makes a braking noise as well. Acceleration and braking. Very cool. And then there's Vivid Flux. Ooh, that's a tinnier, more high-pitched noise. So you can actually have a little bit of encouragement from a fake engine sound, really, but it does sound a lot more like a spaceship than an internal combustion engine. Very cool. Plus, if you don't like any of that, you can switch it off completely. One thing that I don't think is quite as good as the S-Class are the seats, which, in this case, don't have those incredible side bolsters that keep you in place as you go around corners. And overall, I don't think they're quite as comfortable as the seats in the S-Class, but I'm nitpicking now because they're pretty good. I mean, look at these pillows. Gotta love that. You might have noticed the EQS has paddles behind the steering wheel. Those aren't for changing gears. Those are actually for changing the level of energy recuperation from the brakes. So you can cycle between no recuperation, which means that the car will just coast along without scrubbing off any speed, or normal recuperation or increased recuperation, which slows it down quite aggressively to the point where you barely need the brake pedal. As for the suspension, well, it's at least as good as the S-Class. Probably better. I've driven these two cars back-to-back now, and the impression I get is that this rides a little better than the S-Class. It's wonderful. It can actually scan the road ahead and learn where potholes are so that the next time you visit that location, it'll slacken off the air suspension so the car rides more smoothly over the roads. It's, I mean, it works like an absolute treat. This is, oh, it's so good. At the moment in the UK, we're only getting one version of the EQS, the 450 Plus, which has a single 329 horsepower motor driving the rear wheels. This gives 568 newton meters of torque, which is enough for 0-62 in 6.2 seconds. That's not very powerful on paper, but in practice, it feels every bit as quick as the S500. In some countries outside of the UK, Mercedes will also offer the EQS 580, which has 516 horsepower and is good for 0-62 in 4.3 seconds. Fingers crossed we also get that version at a later date. Let's talk range now. The EQS 450 Plus has a massive battery pack. It's 108 kilowatt hours, and that provides a total driving range of up to 484 miles WLTP. That's basically London to Scotland. The only downside is that it's a big old battery pack, so the car weighs a very hefty two and a half tons. Effectively, it's as heavy as an SUV, but don't get it twisted. If you like to drive enthusiastically, the car can acquit itself quite well. Let me use this pad down here on the centre console. I'll knock it into sport mode. Acceleration is good. Noise is good. Chuck it into a corner. Look at that. It's actually dealing with the bends really, really well. Because all the batteries are located really low down in the floor, it has a really low centre of gravity, and that means that when you get into a bend, there's not as much body roll as you might expect. The body control is really good, and the grip is very strong, and then you've got huge amounts of torque as you exit a corner. That noise, listen. You can actually have fun in an EQS. Plus, Mercedes are going to make an AMG version as well. There will be an AMG EQS, and that should be an absolute riot. Okay, there's one more thing I want to show you on this car, which is related to the steering system. It comes with rear wheel steering. In other words, the rear wheels will turn either 4.5 degrees or 10 degrees in the opposite direction to the front to make your turning circle even smaller. So let's try that out. Now, you should be seeing pictures of my rear wheels doing something that looks very, very awkward, but the benefit of that is that you can turn around in exceptionally small spaces. How cool is that? One more thing to show you as well. I'll actually engage this 360-degree camera so you can actually position the camera where you want to help you park, and it feels a bit like you're driving in a video game. You can look all around the car as you drive, which is, that's just so cool, isn't it? It's like playing GTA or something. So it's good for drivers, but how about rear passengers? Well, it's not too bad. Leg and headroom feel pretty similar to the S-Class, and the rear seats are plenty comfortable, although there's no sign of the leg rest you get in the S-Class. But you do get a fold-down center console that doubles as an armrest and a storage area with a fairly useful wireless charging pad. It's good, but not all good. So with that in mind, here are a few highlights and lowlights in the EQS, starting with the good stuff. Charging. This car will charge at a rate of 200 kilowatts. Not the highest that we've seen, but Mercedes reckon it can sustain peak charging for longer, which means you can add 300 kilometers of range into the EQS in only 15 minutes. This car has a really clever sat-nav that can tell you where your local charging stations are. But not only that, it will actually show you how powerful the charges are, whether they're free, and also how much they cost you to charge. Very clever. The EQS has a built-in HEPA filter. That's one of the reasons this bonnet doesn't open. You can actually clean the interior of viruses and bacteria before you get into the car. Plus, it will even recommend that you close the windows and the sunroof whenever you're driving through an area with a bad environment, like slough. These doors are very clever. They have sensors all around, so when they open automatically, they won't slam into an object, like James. James, my stuntman, stand there, please. And I'll open the door, and in theory, he won't get hit. Look at that. There's even another clever function. James, jump in, please. What happens when you close the door, and you have a limb dangling between the door and the frame of the car? Let's find out if he loses a leg. You ready? Will it stop? Boom! Yes! Right, off you go. The EQS can drive itself and park itself. It can put itself into a parking space and remove itself from that parking space without the driver being inside. Unfortunately, that feature isn't available in the UK. Now, onto some of my not-so-favourite features. The rear seating position in the EQS isn't amazing. You have batteries in the floor, which means that your legs are pushed higher than they would be in the S-Class, which means that you end up feeling like you've got your legs up around your chest. Not ideal. That fancy rear wheel steering system that I spoke about earlier, well, it's an optional extra, I'm afraid. As standard, it will let you turn 4.5 degrees in the opposite direction, but to turn the full 10 degrees, you need to spend extra money for an over-the-air software update. So this will cost you. The build quality is not as good as it could be. I know this is a prototype, so I'm willing to forgive it, but I found some little issues. For example, look at this. You can see these controls rattling around. Oh, six-figure car. I'm not so sure that's so good in this. Mercedes' first attempts at building an electric car were pretty hit and miss. The EQA and the EQC weren't exactly slam dunks. This thing, though, I think is an absolute home run, and it really shows what Mercedes can do when they put their minds to it. Honestly, this is the benchmark now. S-Class, we love you, but rest in peace.