Mercedes EVs?

[JonnyVTEC]

TheDeuce said:

Good point - I forgot that their platform is designed for both. Which must be a compromise on many a level I suspect, although when I drove the car I did rate it compared to other EV's I tested at the same time so Merc seem to be making it work.

The cage around the front motor that then replicates the engine install even to the point its bolted where the tailend of the gearbox exists is borderline comedy to be honest. Does mean several layers of isolation to the drive system though!

[SWoll]

JonnyVTEC said:

TheDeuce said:

Good point - I forgot that their platform is designed for both. Which must be a compromise on many a level I suspect, although when I drove the car I did rate it compared to other EV's I tested at the same time so Merc seem to be making it work.

The cage around the front motor that then replicates the engine install even to the point its bolted where the tailend of the gearbox exists is borderline comedy to be honest. Does mean several layers of isolation to the drive system though!

Indeed. Undoubtedly the most refined drivetrain of any EV I've driven, but it pays the price in weight and practicality. At 2500KG it's incredibly heavy for a car its size and battery capacity and has no front luggage space at all.

[TheDeuce]

SWoll said:

JonnyVTEC said:

TheDeuce said:

Good point - I forgot that their platform is designed for both. Which must be a compromise on many a level I suspect, although when I drove the car I did rate it compared to other EV's I tested at the same time so Merc seem to be making it work.

The cage around the front motor that then replicates the engine install even to the point its bolted where the tailend of the gearbox exists is borderline comedy to be honest. Does mean several layers of isolation to the drive system though!

Indeed. Undoubtedly the most refined drivetrain of any EV I've driven, but it pays the price in weight and practicality. At 2500KG it's incredibly heavy for a car its size and battery capacity and has no front luggage space at all.

Perhaps the weight explains the excellent ride. If it does encounter a bump.. the bump loses

Seriously though.. why didn't Merc hit the ground running with a new, EV only platform as others have done? They spend more on R&D than anyone else so what's the deal? Even a tiny company like Jag managed to beat them to market with an entirely new and purpose designed platform that fully exploits the flexibility of layout that EV makes possible. BMW have their own EV platform now too, which is so scalable it can underpin a full sized SUV or a coupe hatchback.. VW/Audi, via Porsche, have the same I believe. It's strange to see Merc take the back step in terms of tech and progress to it's German competitors.

[James B]

Morning folks,

I was hoping someone with some real-world experience of the EQC could help me with a battery capacity/range issue i'm experiencing.

I took delivery of my EQC 2 weeks back and am loving it. However, when i first got it I had 197 miles of range on a full charge and put the lack of range down to cooler weather. Since then it has got colder still and accordingly I have seen the range drop to the 170's. Still no big deal but interesting to note.

Well this morning I have stuck it on charge as tomorrow I have a 150 mile round trip so i want it nicely topped up and I see that, according to the Mercedes Me app, the car will have a range of 157 miles at 100% capacity.

Is this what others are seeing in terms of range drop vs temperature?
I'm a little surprised today at it because the temperature is actually a good handful of degrees warmer than it was when giving 170's range.

Interested in any experiences from owners.

Thanks

James

[unseen]

Hi, I’m seeing between 190 - 211 miles on a 100% charge. I always stick it in ‘D-Auto’ regen rather than just D and it certainly helps on the efficiency front.

[Brucie177]

James B said:

Morning folks,

I was hoping someone with some real-world experience of the EQC could help me with a battery capacity/range issue i'm experiencing.

I took delivery of my EQC 2 weeks back and am loving it. However, when i first got it I had 197 miles of range on a full charge and put the lack of range down to cooler weather. Since then it has got colder still and accordingly I have seen the range drop to the 170's. Still no big deal but interesting to note.

Well this morning I have stuck it on charge as tomorrow I have a 150 mile round trip so i want it nicely topped up and I see that, according to the Mercedes Me app, the car will have a range of 157 miles at 100% capacity.

Is this what others are seeing in terms of range drop vs temperature?
I'm a little surprised today at it because the temperature is actually a good handful of degrees warmer than it was when giving 170's range.

Interested in any experiences from owners.

Thanks

James

I’ve found that the range does vary quite a bit depending upon your recent journey profile. For example, if you’ve mainly been doing short trips, this has probably been quite inefficient as you’ll have been using a fair bit of energy just getting the cabin up to temperature.

However, on a longer journey, the car will likely be more efficient (assuming you stick to sensible speeds on the motorway). The car will likely recalculate your range once you’ve settled into your journey and it *should* predict a greater range.

That’s been my experience, anyway!

Oh, and use the cabin pre-heating whilst the car is still plugged in. That way, you’re using mains power to heat the car, rather than the car’s battery.

Long story short, I think you’ll be fine with that sort of distance!

[SWoll]

Not just temperature that has a significant affect on range though. If it's very wet you'll also see a marked drop, especially at high speeds.

Cold can be balanced out with pre-heating to a degree, bugger all you can do about heavy rain and saturated roads causing increased drag, especially in a chunky SUV.

[James B]

Thanks for the various responses folks. All very useful info.
Well I managed to really test the range the other day.

I set off on my journey with 100% charge (155 miles it said) and I was exactly 139 miles from my destination which was my father's birthday celebration. He and my mother were passengers in the car.
I had a number of emails to deal with so my father was driving and doing a steady 70 on the dual carriageways which made up 90% of the journey. He was using cruise control, had regen in D Auto and I had the car in long range/Eco mode. AC was on and set to 19/20 degree cabin temp.
Weather was wet, cold and getting dark.
I had the destination in the nav and it predicted we arrive with 12 miles of range remaining. I was cool with that but did keep an eye on it just to be sure it wouldn't be an issue later. Along the way i did toggle with turning the AC on and off which made a 10 mile range improvement but with car full of people the windows fogged in moments.

Anyway, about 30 miles from destination the nav tried to take us off to a charge point and suggested a 20 min charge. We could easily have done it but i checked again and we were still due to arrive with 10 miles of range and I had charging planned at destination so felt there was no need. I cancelled the nav and we headed onwards.

Then with 2 miles to go and 9 miles of range 'in the tank' the car went into a reduced performance mode. I had predicted it would do this and had warned my father many miles beforehand that it may do this but given we were so close to destination and were now on an A-road the speeds were lower so I felt it would be fine.

The car was doing 50 mph for about half a mile without issue, then 45, 40, 30 and eventually literally a crawl. There were high verges on both sides of the road so pulling off wasn't possible and we crawled for another few hundred yards until the car literally stopped dead blocking one side of the road. We were 0.7miles from destination with 7 miles of claimed range remaining having covered just 1.3 miles in 'reduced performance' and the car wanted to move no more.

To add to the drama it was coming on for the rush hour and quite a queue was forming behind us. While I got Mercedes SOS on the phone in the car my father managed to turn the car off and on again and we eeked out another 50yds of juice to get us to a patch we could get the car onto. This opened the road up again at least but we still had the small matter of 650yds to make it to our destination in my 3 week old "fuel of the future" powered car and it looked like we would be doing so on the back of a sodding AA van!

However, after about 10 mins of reading manuals to see if there was a way to unlock this phantom 7 miles of range, and holding for the utterly useless Merc assist people, I managed to cycle the car again and the car allowed movement. So much so that I zoomed up to 50 in a moment, got all the way to the destination and into the agreed charging bay! Hurrah!

When I got the car plugged in it was down at 3% with 6 miles of range and took a full charge back up to 100% and 160ish miles.

So, an eventful trip and definitely pointing to something not being quite right as I have watched literally hundreds of reviews of EV's in general and every single one related to EQCs and any time a deliberate attempt to empty it is made they seem to run for much longer on the restricted mode.

I'm in discussion with Mercedes and will update on any findings.

Still, I bloody love the car.

TLDR; EV ran out of juice....or did it? Still like it though.