Mercedes EQE saloon - Electric motor, drive & performance
Mercedes EQE is mostly comfortable and quick off the line
Mercedes tends to prioritise comfort over driver engagement and sportiness, and that’s true of the EQE. It’s the next-generation executive express, designed to be quiet and refined at motorway speeds. Tuning the motor for maximum performance is unnecessary in a car such as this, so it offers a quick acceleration time but not at the expense of range.
Top-spec cars get air suspension with adaptive dampers, which can remember locations where you’ve previously raised the ride height for future use. You can also dial up the stiffness of the suspension, which isn’t something we’d do considering how controlled the EQE feels even in its softest setting.
For the majority of the time, the EQE rides very smoothly and is comfortable over potholes, although bumpy roads can upset the ride a little. We’ll need to wait to see how well it deals with a poorly surfaced British road, and if our suspicions that an E-Class is more comfortable are confirmed.
Mercedes EQE electric motor
The EQE sits on the same platform as the larger EQS, and has a powerful electric motor mounted on the rear axle. EQE 350+ models, the only ones available at the time of writing, have 288bhp and can sprint from 0-62mph in 6.4 seconds - despite weighing more than two tonnes. You don’t get the same breathless shove as when you accelerate in a Tesla Model S, but it’s suitably quick.
In time, a dual-motor four-wheel-drive version of the EQE will be offered, and there’ll be two Mercedes-AMG EQE models: an EQE 43 with 469bhp and a 4.2-second 0-62mph time, and a 617bhp EQE 53 with an even quicker acceleration time. Both of these specifications are still likely to manage more than 300 miles between charges.
