I bought an EQE 350 4matic, bought in July this year. I will preface this rant with the fact that I owned a Tesla Model.S.100D for 6 years (and loved it).

In the Tesla, the user profile was linked to the key fob. You didn't "login". Extra step #1. I am finding that at cold temps (40°F), the fingerprint scanner for login fails period. It has even locked me out, so that I am driving using a "temp" user profile. THIS MAKES NO SENSE! Why have a "profile"?

Also, I noticed that when I charge at home and the weather is cold (35°F), the 70% charge is significantly less. It normally charges to 220 mile range (at 70% level). Yesterday, it showed 182 mile range at 70%. THIS NEVER HAPPENED IN THE TESLA. I find this very disturbing.

Lastly, as an overall critique, the user interface is designed very badly. It violates all kinds of UI conventions, including nothing should be more than 2 levels down. Tesla's interface (at least as recently as June 23) is much easier and intuitive. Mercedes has things buried several levels down. To be fair...so does Porsche Taycan. I think it's a German engineering thing 🤷. I don't think the s/w engineers in Germany did any user testing with real ppl. Even the sales folks at the dealership couldn't figure the interface out! They literally send ppl to school for a week to learn this! Think Apple iOS and Android OS....SIMPLE FOLKS!! The interface needs an overhaul. Also, the screen is way too busy. I figured out how to hide all the icons in the lower screen.

Well end of rant. I'll be calling the dealer about the level of charge in cold weather.

 

1. Profile linked to the smartkey is the #1 complaint. It is what it is.
2. You can setup a 2nd fingerprint, a password, and voice recognition so you should never be locked out of your profile.
3. MB is pretty accurate on range prediction (report are Tesla is overly optimistic). Cold in combination of a recent long highway drive will drop the range significantly. The dealer will be unlikely to offer any further explanation, but good luck for trying.
4. I do not find the UI difficult to navigate. Like any other system it takes time to figure out where things are. Same experience for me with an iPhone where there are multiple levels with Settings.

 

The charging range shouldn't change, ever. I have yet to take that car on a long highway drive...mainly bc the E.A. chargers are so screwed up. If you haven't owned a Tesla...you can't comment on "so called" Tesla range optimistic. I got 330 miles range consistently (@100% charge on long trips) for 6 yrs. I bought the EQE based on all I've been reading on their research and testing of battery technology.....it's just surprising that their batteries aren't as good as Tesla. And that's from personal experience. It's very disappointing.

There is NO good reason to see that significant a drop in range after charging, no matter the outside temp.

 

First off, welcome to the community. Hope you can find some answers that help you. As for the range, it is a prediction, nothing more. My experience with Teslas is that the range is only predictive when navigation is enabled. Otherwise, the range is sugarcoated and then non-linearly dives when SoC hits 50%. Like I said, my experience. MB on the other hand factors your driving habits and the temperature a-priori. You are not getting less charging capacity, or even range. It's just trying to tell you ahead of time that winter driving is less efficient. Recurrent had a big meta study that it just released. It shows that Tesla cars, for instance, do not sufficiently adjust the predicted range on the dash based on temperature. The actual range though, varies greatly, by temperature, and so the car has to "catch up" as SoC drops. In contrast, I've found that the MB display is, if anything, quite conservative in its estimates. You can literally watch the prediction change as temp drops, and you can see the contributing factors in the range estimate in the EQ panel. Your battery size hasn't changed, and is the only constant in this equation that cannot change. Everything else will be variable based on energy consumers in the car. Hope that helps, the car is doing what it should and giving you fair warning about increased power usage.

Just so I back up my statements with fact, here's some data from the Recurrent study. This is over 4500 vehicles, some of which have heat pump, some of which don't. As I'd mentioned before, the dashboard-indicated range is temperature-invariant, which doesn't match up to how the battery chemistry and consumers change in cold weather.


Me personally, I love the fact that the MB car will keep ahead of things and let me know how much I can expect. The 100 kWh batteries in the EQE have been excellent for range and performance, based on all of my experiences.

 

It's how the user interfaces with the car itself that irritates me, not the infotainment UI. I still have to look down at the controls and consciously think about everything, even just turning my wipers on. I get in my new 2024 F-Pace SVR and all the controls are where they're supposed to be. Where decades of trial and error dictates they should be. I can even press a button and turn my radio off in the Jag, not just mute everything. I find that soooooo much more mentally relaxing than all MB's "energizing comfort" nonsense that I couldn't even figure out how to disable but thankfully it just finally went away after I ignored it long enough.

Then again I hear Tesla has done away with stalks entirely so maybe it doesn't bother you as much as me.

 

Absolutely. I've been around MBs or owned them for a fair bit of time. 10 years ago, some complained that the MBs had too many stalks. But they were always intuitive, and you never misplaced what you were trying to do. The capacitive controls drive me batty. The on-screen ones even more. There's nothing better when controlling a car than being able to rely on muscle memory. At least, there are indications that the capacitive cost-cutting trend may be on the way back out, time will tell. My W213 had so many buttons on the steering wheel, at first I thought it was way too many. Now I miss them, and though I've grown well accustomed to where most features are on the EQE, it's just not the same.

 

I have owned a Tesla, for 4.5 years prior to getting the EQE. The Tesla's GuessOMeter was consistent from summer to winter, but that doesn't mean it was right. In winter, it was impossible to actually get that range. I took regular 180 mile trips to visit relatives and while it always started with 290-300 miles reported range, by the time I got there, in winter, it would report 50-60 miles so my total realistic range was closer to 220 miles.

The EQE on the other hand displays a more realistic range so while it's surprising to see the lower number, at least it's realistic. I much prefer Mercedes' approach here. I don't want to plan a round trip thinking I can make it back home without charging, only to realize I'm at my destination and scrambling to find a charger. With the Supercharger network, that's not a big deal, but if you have to rely on EA, well...

On the infotainment stuff, I somewhat agree. UI stuff has never been good at Mercedes. I hate the swipe volume control on the steering wheel. Menu items tend to be buried under multiple layers making it hard to find something and harder to remember once you do find it. It's laughable that you have to subscribe to an online music package but that only gets you access to the apps. To actually use the apps, you have to provide your own data or subscribe to another packge.