Electric Mercedes Vision EQXX Concept – 620-mile range, 198bhp and surprisingly compact

The electric Mercedes Vision EQXX Concept is revealed with low weight, slippery shape, compact size, 198bhp and a range of 620 miles.

Mercedes has been busy teasing the Vision EQXX Concept for a while as a look at the future of EVs, and now it arrives. And it does deliver a few surprises.

Perhaps the biggest surprise is that the EQXX is surprisingly compact, a bit smaller than the C-Class and with a wheelbase a bit shorter too, not what you’d expect from an EV, and weighing in at 1,750kg – not much more than an ICE C-Class.

Not a surprise, because it’s already been the tease boast, is the touted range of the EQXX at 620 miles, although that’s achieved not by fitting a huge battery – the EQXX’s battery is ‘less than’ 100kWh – but through efficiencies and technology advances.

That means a battery pack that’s 50 per cent smaller in volume than the 100kWh battery in the EQS – and weighs 30 per cent less too – a solar panel on the roof able to power ancillaries from a separate battery, and all able to deliver six miles for every kWh of power – twice the real-world range of most current EVs.

The battery powers a modest 198bhp electric motor on the back axle, which should allow for a brisk takeoff but relatively modest performance, as Mercedes eschews the Tesla route of using EVs to deliver the sort of performance once the preserve of supercars. But it’ll help efficiency and range.

The huge range of the EQSS isn’t just down to its battery but also to clever aero, from its slippery teardrop shape with a tiny frontal area delivering a drag coefficient of just 0.18, with air curtains in the front bumper, active cooling shutters, deployable rear diffuser, flat wheel covers and ultra-low rolling-resistance tyres from Bridgestone.

Inside eschews Mercedes’ normal wood and leather look for a cabin dominated by a screen running the full width of the dash with 8k resolution and 3D graphics, with lost of recycled materials used like vegan leather from mushrooms, bamboo carpets and Biosteel fibre.

It’s unlikely the EQSS will morph directly in to a production Mercedes EV, but it will certainly inform the direction of all Mercedes’ future EVs.