I've been following and considering a EQE500 for a few months and over that time I"ve come to realize why that I've only seen one on the road and haven't seen any eqe350) in the last 4 months: 1) ridiculously small rear window with an limited view; 2) major glare on the center console and ipad spedometer grouping probably due to the angle that it is placed (closing the roof has no affect); 3) high price - for a eqe500 typically and nicely equipped, about 102-104k; 4) MB has just reduced the residual value on a 24 month lease to 55%--so MB themselves has no confidence in this car maintaining its value if it will drop almost in half in two years; .....so then if the manufacturer won't even stand behind its car, can it really expect the consumer to take a risk; 5) we can discuss its body design on the exterior but really nothing special and some might consider it ugly; I have to imagine that they are locked into the design for 2024 but i'm guessing some updates on thea bove issues for 2025....think its time to move on--and as an aside on the 350 are you aware that MB has the audacity to do an over the air upgrade for a cost to increase the horsepower-if you make a car with a motor, then make it available to the customer shelling out there money and don't take advantage and offer more horse power for more money with an upgrade that costs them nothing

 

Look, electric cars are fundamentally overpriced. What you get for the money is nowhere what you pay for, because the battery is so expensive. They cut costs in all corners. Lots of plastic, screens and software instead of more expensive interiors with some character. It's what Tesla spearheaded. Build quality is also lower than what we are used to from the brand. I think the market is slowly but surely catching on to the fact that these are appliances that are effectively obsolete 2 years down the line. You are paying a ton of money for a large battery to meet a range point that few people actually really use. And don't forget, MB etc. are not building these because they really want to. They are building them, because political agendas are forcing them.

I'm not sure about some of your reasons. For example small rear window. The EQE has a coupe like body line. I've pretty much only owned coupes in my lifetime and small rear windows with a low roofline is part of the formula. These days there are 360 cameras. I don't even look out the rear window anymore when backing up. No matter how large it is, the cameras simply give better visibility. For example when I'm backing out of a parking spot next to another car, the rear camera with the wide angle view actually peeks out into what's to the sides before I have a chance to see it from the driver's seat. A lot of the early adopters that really wanted an EV also already have one. Tesla is somewhat of an exception, but EVs aren't really flying off the shelves, nor are most manufacturers truly making money on them. Rivian and Lucid are dying for example.

As for the paid horsepower increase, that's not all that new. Cars are built to a certain price point, so the performance that they come with has to have enough headroom to guarantee the quality and lifetime of the product, has to be tested and the warranty claims have to be small. There's always room for more, but that requires more testing and time and therefore a higher price point. In the past this has primarily been tapped into by aftermarket tuners. Hey this is the whole reason why AMG exists. They unlocked performance that was already there in regular MBs for a price. Pretty much all engines have room for more power and that's what aftermarket tunes tap into. However, with an aftermarket tune you lose the warranty and for good reason. The manufacturer isn't gonna stand behind the product if you modify it beyond their approval. What you get with the paid upgrade in the EQE is higher performance backed by the manufacturer's warranty. They had to make sure that the rest of the car holds up to the higher performance. That required additional testing and tuning that costs them money and potentially increased warranty claims will cost them money as well. Ask an aftermarket tuner of an ICE to back their product with a warranty and most of them will laugh at you. Unlocking that extra power increases the risk of premature failure and if you want the risk to be covered by a warranty, you gonna have to pay for that.

Stressing a system more will inevitably shorten its lifetime. Make no mistake, but this power upgrade doesn't come for free. MB is confident enough that it won't blow up the drivetrain before the warranty ends, but after that it's not their problem anymore and in order to back the upgrade with their warranty, they want some money in exchange. You didn't pay for the higher performance and the potentially higher warranty claims with the initial purchase of the car. It was built and tested to the price point it was sold at with the performance it came with. Not more, but they'll give you more if you pay more.

 

IMHO it is ridiculously overpriced. CR bashed this car in the worst way and central to their theme was price. You can buy a slightly used CPO EQS580 for less money than a EQE500.

 

Please explain this. What product does MB want to make?

 

If it wasn't because those I am guessing AMGs will still have tons of V8s including on new C 63, and that there won't be a requirement to build mild-hybrid vehicles, hybrid vehicles or full electric is my guess.

 

This is my first EV and I have to say I'm not missing the oil. First scheduled maintenance is in two years. Ya gotta love that! And as far as politics goes, sometimes people accidentally do the right thing for the wrong reason. Personally I could care less about my carbon footprint and global warming. But like USMC Major General Smedley Butler said, "War is a Racket". It's really not surprising many countries, like Mexico and Venezuela, just quit pretending it's a free market and nationalized their entire oil industry. Plus it's just messy and smelly stuff... did I mention I really don't miss it?

 

I have to explain? If it was up to them, they'd continue to build ICE powered vehicles and especially profitable emotional V8 powered AMGs. The EQ models are not selling from what I'm gathering. Not just the EQE. There are large discounts to be had as MB is trying to move the inventory. The EQS is widely viewed as not at the level of the S Class and the typical S Class buyer isn't running down the doors.

Personally I actually liked the EQE 53 I had a chance to drive dynamically at a recent AMG Driving Academy event in Austria. I liked the seating position, high shoulder line and coupe like feel. Drove quite well as well, and didn't mind that there was no engine sound, although the artificial sound effects are just lame. But I just can't get myself to spend that kind of money on an electric car. Biggest issue for me is also that these things are just way too heavy, and they just don't hold a candle to my V8 AMG in terms of driving experience, engagement and emotion.

Here's a pic from the event. C63S coupe on the left, A45S on the right and EQE 53 in the middle. As much as I liked the EQE, I'd take the C63 every time and the A45S before I'd take the EQE.

 

I think that you have provided a perfect argument as to why items for the common good such as C02 emission reduction have to be legislated.

 

That is absolutely true. The problem is legislation often backfires, because the politicians don't really understand the bigger picture, either. There are always the unintended consequences. Whether we can actually stop climate change remains to be seen. In fact stopping it is pretty much impossible. Question is if the reduction in CO2 emissions will actually yield the expected results and what new environmental disaster we will have to deal with stemming from lithium mining etc., or all the used batteries, solar panels and wind turbines that are piling up. At the end of the day, as long as we need energy we will continue to impact the environment.

 

Well sure we can just take a fkit attitude and party on.....

 

That's one way to put it. Another way would be to be smarter about what we are doing about it. Instead of just replacing ICEs with EVs and keep on driving, how about getting smarter about transportation and where we live, so we don't have to drive all over in the first place for our daily needs? For example there's a concept called the 15-Minute City. I've talked about this before. The idea is that most of your daily needs are only a 15 minute walk away from where you live. This would require smarter zoning laws instead of continuing on with the suburban sprawl that created the car dependency we have in the USA. I actually happen to live the 15-minute city lifestyle. I live in an urban, highly walkable area. I have grocery stores, cafes, restaurants, healthcare services and various businesses all within a 15 minute walk or bike ride as well as a train station to head into the city. Both my wife and I also work form home, so we don't drive 10s of thousands of miles every year. I burn less fuel with my V8 driven only a few thousand miles a year, than somebody commuting 15-18k miles a year in their Prius, so it comes down to how much you drive and not necessarily what you drive. Or how about not living in the middle of nowhere with temperatures rising into the triple digits during the summer and running the air conditioner 24/7? I know it's all inconvenient. People want their McMansion in some suburb with pool and what not and just drive everywhere they need to go, EVs will fix that, right?

 

I couldn't agree more. EV's are a very imperfect answer and you are dead right about the total consumption equation. IMHO people should to be allocated a carbon budget that is compatible with the earth's needs and if for example somebody wants to enjoy an ICE within that budget more power to them. If they want to exceed that budget then they can pay for removing the excess carbon.

I look at my ICE ownership similarly. My ICE isn't all that efficient but it isn't ready for the scrap heap just yet. I am retired so it sits in the garage a lot. I drive it to maximize my mileage. I minimize my trips. In a way I think of it as carbon sequestering versus if someone else owned it and drove more miles with it and less efficiently.

In the last year we were invited to two destination weddings. I think that is just f'd up. I didn't go to either one. Unfortunately my step daughter is also going to have one which I won't be able to weasel out of.

 

There's actually a German professor who proposed just that. The shocking part is that the budget is 3 tons of CO2 a year. He basically took the amount of CO2 we can emit to not exceed the 1.5 degrees of earth warming or whatever it was and divided it by the number of people. The result is 3 tons a year now, but the more humans we put into this world the lower it gets. You don't get far with 3 tons in the western world, so people who need more than 3 tons would have to buy certificates from those who use less. See pricing things has always been more effective than legislating it. Make driving more expensive. Introduce a per mile tax for example. It can be higher for ICE than EVs, but lets not pretend that driving 20k miles a year in an EV is environmentally friendly, so the privilege of driving that much has to come at a cost that is directly felt by the consumer and that only works if it hits their wallets. Make it progressive, too, so those who drive excessively should pay more.

 

Thanks for the professors study number. It will be interesting (depressing) to see how much we are using compared to that figure. To start off with we have an old poorly insulated house in the midwest.

 

The beauty of the proposal above is that the low carbon users are the ones who are on the short end of the stick in terms of the impact of climate change. So the funds could be used to help them with the effects.

 

It's very depressing. To put it in perspective. The CO2 emissions of producing an 80 kWh lithium battery depending on the energy mix of where it is produced ranges from about 3 tons to 16 tons. The higher end is in places like China where electricity mainly comes from coal plants. It was just recently revealed that EVs in China produce more CO2 than equivalent ICE over the lifetime of the vehicle. Isn't that ironic? So just buying an EV will put you way over the budget. Let's say you are allowed to amortize those emissions over 10 years, then you are still looking at up to 1.6 tons per year just for buying the car. Or another example, a roundtrip flight from San Francisco to New York is 2 to 3 tons per passenger. The average American generates about 19 tons per year. It also varies greatly by income. The top 1% have a carbon footprint of over 50 tons per person, so whatever we do, it better be highly progressive. Just because you are a billionaire should not entitle you to pollute away like there's no tomorrow. It should cost them billions to buy certificates to pollute as much as they do now with flying by private jet and cruising around in their super yachts.

Exactly.

 

I love the discussion! People should always be debating merits of how to improve things for future generations, whether you feel it affects you or not, and in what capacity.

To the end of producing BEVs, there have been a few peer-reviewed publications put out there that demonstrate that the break-even point in CO2 emissions for a BEV is about 15k-19k miles. At that point, no matter the fuel source for generating electricity, the BEV always wins out. The more renewable, the better. The carbon intensity is, for sure, higher at the initial outset for a BEV. However, the math quickly catches up. MB is known to purchase carbon emissions offsets and renewable energy credits - both of which can significantly move the needle on the CO2 intensity side of the equation. EQs also use a fair bit of recycled materials (100% of the steel is recycled, to my understanding), which also moves the needle. Agreed that BEVs made in China may be on the very far end of the CO2 intensity range, as there's a long way to go in decarbonization. That being said, their economy is certainly strongly in the renewables direction, as they are a top producer and installer of the technology. Not trying to advocate or put down, just citing a reference. In general, my view is that MB EQs are on the lighter end of the carbon footprint compared to many other BEV alternatives. Add to this that in addition to the production and emissions aspect of an ICE-equipped vehicle, that fuel has to be pumped, shipped, and trucked to a destination, the carbon intensity of a fuel source is quite high.

To the main topic of the thread - I've been fortunate enough to grow up with MB ICE vehicles, and have owned a few leading up to my EQE - these include both SUV and sedans with diesel engines (X204, W164, W212, W124 (restoration project)) and gas engines (W213) prior to my V295. My family members had MBs going back to a 1989 260E in the W124 chassis. There have been some legendary engines, including M103, OM606, OM651 (people hate on this engine, but it's so efficient), and M274. The point is, each generation of MB has served as a guidepost in quality, technology, safety, comfort, and performance. I'll never forget the sound of my dad's 260E when it went full throttle. A slow car by today's standards, but it sounded wonderful. I spent many, many childhood hours in that car as we drove it all across the United States. Indeed, the W124 chassis set the benchmark for what I have come to expect from MB, and yes, it was as overengineered as legend says it is. So much so that I have been restoring a W124 as a '95 E300D, and it's a truly wonderful vehicle. And yes, things have changed in MB land. A lot.

Consider the W212, which was panned for being boring, but was a solid successor to the W211. It was super solidly built, was very reliable, and all of the touch points were soft touch. There were still MB creature comforts like duplicated functionality and options (the entire dash was soft-touch material, it had double sun visors, and grab handles everywhere), just because MB overengineered and provided extra amenities. Yes, some items were more cost conscious, but it's still a solid package. We unfortunately lost our W212 due to an accident. It was rebuilt, I drove it for 6 months, and then my insurance company informed me after the fact that it was totaled. Fortunately, it has stayed in the family as it was purchased at auction. My replacement for that car was a W213. Technologically, far superior - better engine performance, much lighter chassis, more responsive steering, but at the cost of some noticeable cost cutting. Lots of the soft touch was nowhere near as comfortable, there were some cheaper materials used in other places. In the 2021 refresh, even the double visors were gone, though fortunately my W213 still had them. I'm sad they're no longer in EQE, or the grab handles, for that matter. However, despite these changes, W213 is arguably the best E-class I'd ever had. It drove like a dream, handled better than any other I'd had, and was a very predictable vehicle.

EQE is also different. There's no denying the weight. The rear glass is small, yes, but I stopped being annoyed by that on about day 2. Despite that, it's a truly refined vehicle. Brake modulation with regen, say what you will about the weird pedal movement, is excellent. Probably among the best in the business. It's clear they spent a long time working on the platform, and that there was a lot of thorough engineering put into it. Am I a bit miffed that it cost $15k more than a similarly-equipped E-class? Sure. Yet, the more I drive it, the less I am disturbed by that price difference, because it feels worth it. Yes, there are other quibbles - while the center of mass is very low, and feels pretty great around curves especially with rear-axle steering, you can tell in chicane-style maneuvers that there is a fair bit of extra weight - it is noticeable when transferring transversely across the chassis - but that is expected. As a safe and comfortable cruiser though, it is a sublime vehicle. It's well put together, and feels super solid - just like an MB should.

Personally, we have a PV system at home, so we harvest the photons that charge the car. So far, so good. And MB, at least for the near term, offsets the CO2 emissions through renewable energy certificates from public charging - basically any charging source that is connected through ChargePoint. In our case, the carbon intensity is definitely reduced. I certainly understand that most people will not install a PV system, for either financial or ideological reasons. It's certainly not a requirement, and for many people it won't make sense. For us, it was a long-term strategy, and eventually it included a BEV this year. Eventually though, the grid will catch up. Some of my industry-funded research work is funded by our state-wide utility. There are strong efforts to decarbonize in the industry, and this leads all the way to upper management. It's coming one way or another.

I have strong faith that MB will continue to innovate and make masterful vehicles. Is the EQE perfect? No. But neither were any of the ICE cars it made. You can make the argument that each generation of C or E-class did represent the pinnacle of combustion engine cars, and the over 120 years of experience certainly helps. And yes, EQs are relatively young, and have quirks that go with it. But the EQE sedan feels solid, and I'm very happy to have purchased one. Unfortunately, the entry price is too high. But once it's in your driveway, you start to feel differently about that investment - at least I have. While a long-winded answer for sure, I hope it can help the discussion!

 

Be careful with these so-called peer reviewed studies. They don't necessarily compare apples to apples. Also, none of them include the final recycling of the car and especially the battery, because there isn't really any data on that at the moment. The recycling rate of consumer lithium batteries is shamefully low. Volvo published one of the better well to wheel studies in 2021, because they are pretty much the only manufacturer that sells the same car as pure ICE, Hybrid and Full EV and they compared emissions and determined the break even point. Their study is based on real world manufacturing and supply chain data and not some theoretical exercise. Nor do they have any incentive to make ICE look better as Volvo has fully committed to EVs. It was done to highlight that there's work to be done. They came up with significantly higher break even points with the only difference being the powertrain. With the average global energy mix, the break even point is almost 70k miles (68,300 miles) and with the C40 charged on renewable energy alone, the break even point is still 30k miles to the XC40 (pure ICE). The Volvo study also did not include the energy required to recycle the battery at the end for the same reason that there isn't actual real world data available.

 

I would have to disagree. No one put a gun in their head to make the decision to be EV only by 2030, phasing out ICE and plug-in hybrid completely.
Of course, political force and legislation played a role, but they did make a decision to go all in for EV - a decision not shared by their competitors like BMW or VW.

 

First off all thanks for the short hand on the perspective.

I have looked at the numbers myself and am on board with the battery numbers. My spin was that the C02 cost of an EQS battery has a about a two year payback when compared with an S560 using my local energy supplier. Not aware of the China produced EV numbers. I thought that Tesla's are produced in the US a lot more sustainably. The payback for EV's moves way out when compared to hybrids.

I also get the knock against EV's regarding the pollution for extracting rare earth metals and we need to stop doing that. Though I liken it to chemotherapy where you are poisoning the patient to try to save him. We are in the early (blood letting) stages of this.

But one thing you absolutely can not argue against EV's relative to ICE engines is their energy conversion efficiency. And if they are supplied with sustainable energy they are a clear winner for the climate.
But to your earlier point. They really are not THE solution. It is going to take a complete mindset change relative to lifestyle if we are going to make it. It really will be a measurement of mankind's collective intelligence.

Also you will get no argument from me on the need for the carbon tax to be progressive. I think that is one of the knocks that has been levied against a carbon tax is that it won't really impact the wealthy and it will be regressive.

My son as worked on multiple billionaires yachts and told me about the obscene amount of fuel that they burn just move them to where they want to spend their holidays (note the owners are at home during these moves). One such move required 20000 gallons of fuel if I recall correctly. Another one (an Arab prince) would send out a small flotilla of boats before he took his 250 ft yacht anywhere.

Being car guys you will appreciate this story. One day my son was in the engine room and along comes the Prince's son. He asks my son what the engines were and my son tells him V-16's. And the son smiles and says "16's oh like my Bugatti?"

 

Except that's not actually what they said. What they said was that they will go all-electric by 2030 where market conditions allow. In markets where the demand or pressure for EVs is not there, they will continue to sell gas-powered cars. I agree that they could have done it differently. Instead of shifting to a whole new line of EVs, they could have done it like BMW and just offer an electric version for every model and see where the demand is. What I would have liked them to do, specifically as far as AMG is concerned, is like Porsche not mess with their V8 products and just launch some kick-*** AMG EV that lots of people want to buy in order to offset the carbon emissions of the V8 models, just like Porsche isn't messing with the 911 formula at least for now, but is selling lots of Taycans to offset the emissions. Porsche has to sell two Taycans for every 911, but they are doing it.

https://www.theverge.com/2021/7/22/2...ev-2030-caveat

 

You already can't buy a new gas Jeep in 14 states. Makes me wanna go buy a 2024 right now actually, before the party outlaws them completely and mandates we all go electric, or else. But this Mercedes has spoiled me a little. I really can't imagine I'll ever want to drive the Jeep. It'll probably just sit in the driveway and bake in the sun. And like I said before, I'm really not missing dealing with power steering oil, brake oil, differential oil, engine oil, oil, oil, oil oil... aaargh! Make it all go away! LOL

Anywho, maybe if more people drove the EQE instead of just looking at (being revolted by) the egg-like shape they'd sell better. Shape works better in SUV form though if you ask me.

 

The Jeep restriction is for a purely ICE vehicle. They are selling PHEVs, so the best (and worst) of both worlds.

As to the EQE sedan, if it had been a useful and functional liftgate similar to EQS, I would have been much more tempted. I'll never buy a conventional trunk vehicle again after living with and benefitting from my BMW 330i GT, thus I am waiting for the 2024 order guide to submit my EQE SUV order.