ELECTRIC AVENUE

With the upcoming EQS, Mercedes-Benz is paving a more eco-focused path

When Steffen Kohl, MercedesBenz’s director of advanced exterior design, first began to envision the EQS, the German automaker’s first all-electric vehicle, he knew he had to do something radical. “We already have an S-Class,” Kohl says, referring to Mercedes’s flagship sedan. “You want to travel different paths than the ones you’ve gone before. You don’t want to hurt or scratch the icon, which works and will work for years to come, but you want to create another icon parallel to it.”

To achieve that, Kohl tossed out the traditional three-box sedan configuration (where the engine, interior and trunk all sit in distinct spaces) in favour of what he calls a “one-bow” design, with a swooping roofline that extends nearly the entire length of the car. “When you use one major, simple line, it gives you a kind of elegance,” Kohl says. “It feels more like a rainbow or a landscape than architecture.”

Inside, the EQS offers that familiar Mercedes-Benz luxury, albeit in a distinctly futuristic package. The star of the show is the optional Hyperscreen, a 1.4-metre pane of glass that floats across the entire width of the dash, encompassing a digital instrument panel, a large central touchscreen and a smaller screen on the passenger’s side.

The standard rear-wheel drive model boasts a blissfully quiet 329-horsepower engine, powered by a monster lithium-ion battery that Mercedes says is capable of delivering up to 770 kilometres of range. “I took it out in the mountains with my family, and I’m not a slow driver,” Kohl says. “You trust the range, because the needle just doesn’t really move.”

The car is moving toward the brand’s goal of being carbon neutral by 2039. “This is the beginning of a whole new era, and the EQS is a good step for us to jump off and grow from,” Kohl says. “There’s a new league to play in, and the race is on.”

The EQS arrives in Canada in November with pricing to be announced closer to launch. For more information, visit mercedes-benz.ca.