I drove Mercedes-Benz's $141,000 Tesla rival and experienced the electric, screen-filled future of luxury cars

The 2022 Mercedes-Benz EQS 580.
Tim Levin/Insider

The new EQS is Mercedes-Benz's first shot at taking on Tesla in the US.
The six-figure luxury sedan boasts up to 350 miles of range, a striking collection of screens, and an interior full of high-end materials.
The well-optioned EQS 580 model that Mercedes lent me cost around $141,000.

Tesla is now the best-selling luxury car brand in the US. If you needed more proof that the future of the auto industry is electric, well there you go.

But what's surely a feather in the cap of Elon Musk is a gut-punch to storied, high-end brands like BMW and Mercedes-Benz that were always the go-to choice for buyers with some extra money to spend.

The Germans have had enough.

Late last year, Mercedes launched its first battery-powered car for US buyers: the EQS sedan. I took a spin in the luxurious four-door to see exactly what Tesla is up against and came away impressed by the Benz's extra-long range, buttery-smooth ride, and breathtaking interior.

(Mercedes lent me a dual-motor, all-wheel-drive 2022 EQS 580 packed with options that came out to $141,000. The base EQS 450+ has a single motor, rear-wheel drive, and starts at just over $100,000.)

What stands out: A plush interior stuffed with cool tech

Trying to do two vastly different things at once can be a recipe for disaster, but the EQS successfully straddles the worlds of old-school luxury and forward-thinking technology.

It's exceptionally comfortable inside thanks to cushy leather seats with massaging, cooling, and heating functions. Better yet, you rarely have to lift a finger to get comfy. Just shout something like "Hey Mercedes, I want a massage," and the car obliges.

From its turbine-style air vents to its leather-wrapped steering wheel, everything you touch feels incredibly sturdy and expensive. Extensive, colorful ambient lighting and an enveloping, crisp sound system mean you're never itching to get out of the serene EQS and go back to the noisy, dirty reality of life.

The centerpiece of the sedan's interior is the 56-inch "Hyperscreen," which, depending on your disposition towards screens in cars, might be dazzling or daunting. I'm somewhere in the middle.

Actually three separate displays behind a single sheet of glass, the Hyperscreen is definitely a lot of screen and can be distracting. But it's snappy, intuitive, and offers some useful features.

When you come up to a turn with the navigation system switched on, a forward-looking camera view pops up on the screen with a blue arrow pointing to the exit you need to take. Pull up the car's efficiency settings and it will tell you how much your A/C consumption and other habits are impacting range. There's even a "Maximize Range" button that saves energy by turning off the display and optimizing other settings.

A fingerprint scanner on the center console allows drivers to access their specific preferences for the seats and other settings.

Importantly — and unlike Tesla — Mercedes didn't stuff every single important function into the touchscreen or hide basic settings behind too many menus. The climate controls, for example, permanently live at the bottom of the main display.

The front-passenger display doesn't seem to do anything different from the center screen, and I can't quite see when it would be useful.

Driving the EQS

All electric cars drive remarkably smoothly since they don't shift gears or make noise. But the EQS isn't any electric car. It's the new flagship from a brand renowned for transporting heads of state and other deep-pocketed folks in total comfort. So it does a little extra.

The EQS delivers that silky electric-car experience on another level. It glides quietly and effortlessly down the road, its air suspension soaking up bumps along the way.

The sedan doesn't burst forward with the brutal acceleration of rivals from Porsche and Tesla. It's more intended for peaceful highway cruising than whiplash-inducing 0-60 sprints. Still, the EQS 580 makes a healthy 516 horsepower and will feel like a rocket to most buyers.

Like in other EVs, hitting the accelerator triggers a futuristic-sounding engine noise to be pumped into the cabin. I used to find this sort of plainly artificial driving soundtrack lame, but the more I drive EVs, the less I mind it. It can be nice to have some more interesting sensory feedback than just wind noise.

And you can hit the accelerator all day long, since the EQS 580 is rated by the Environmental Protection Agency for 340 miles of range. (The 450+ can go 350.) That's less than competitors from Tesla and Lucid Motors, but any range estimate with a "3" in front of it feels reassuring in a time when public charging stations aren't on every street corner.

Standard rear-wheel steering means that despite the EQS's land-yacht size it slides into parking spots and carves around sharp corners like a Smart Car. And a superb adaptive cruise control system helps out on long highway stints by maintaining a speed, following lane lines, and even changing lanes when prompted by the turn signal.

There's one thing wrong with the way the EQS drives. When regenerative braking is active, the brake pedal feels disconnected and you need to press it strangely far to feel any resistance.

Our impressions: The future of luxury is here

As Mercedes's electric flagship, the EQS flexes the best of what the brand can do. It's luxurious and comfortable, while delivering tons of range and interesting tech. If you can spare no expense and want an electric car that returns the favor, you can't go wrong with an EQS.

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Contributer : Business Insider https://ift.tt/5u4Q7oa

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