Drive Notes: 2024 Mercedes- Benz EQS 450+

by Tim Healey

Published: July 17th, 2024

When the 2024 Mercedes-Benz EQS 450+ sedan showed up at my house, I was astounded to see how much battery range it has.

Mercedes lists it at 350, but since EV range can fluctuate with driving style and conditions, the vehicle was showing a max of over 400 miles and an estimated remaining range of around 385 or so when the car was dropped off.

The battery capacity, if you're wondering, is 108.4 kWh.

Other key specs -- 329 horsepower, 417 lb-ft of torque, and a price tag of $115,160 as tested on top of a base price of $104,400.

Let's dive in to the pros and cons.

Pros

This is one sublime package overall. The ride is smooth and supple but never soft.
Handling is fun, even without selecting the stiffer Sport mode.
There's plenty of power on tap.
Mercedes might be the only OEM doing haptic touch even remotely well -- and even then, it's not perfect.
I love huge center-stack screen. Well integrated and easy to read.
The customizable gauge cluster is fun.
It's very silent inside, as a luxury EV should be.
The interior materials are class appropriate.

Cons

Unlike with the last EQS sedan I drove, I had a hard time getting the seating position just right.
The wireless cell phone charger requires an awkward reach, especially if you're using the retractable cupholders.
Rear headroom is cut down by the sloping roof line.
There's a retractable cover for the cupholder area, and it's too easily activated if you bump it.
MBUX infotainment is generally easy to use, but certain functions are overly complicated or require too much menu-diving.
I didn't need to charge it -- not that I can, anyway, where I live -- but the spec sheet shows an 11.25 hour charge time 10 percent to 100 percent on a 240V and 31 minutes 10 percent to 80 percent when using DC fast charging. While the fast charge time is only a few minutes more than other vehicles, that's still a bit longer.

I dig the EQS overall. It has a very livable range, it's comfortable, it's fun to drive, and it feels like a luxury sedan should. The price tag is dear, even for a Mercedes, and I was let down by the seating position. Still, overall, I'd consider an EQS if I was in the proper tax bracket.

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Tim Healey

Tim Healey grew up around the auto-parts business and has always had a love for cars — his parents joke his first word was “‘Vette”. Despite this, he wanted to pursue a career in sports writing but he ended up falling semi-accidentally into the automotive-journalism industry, first at Consumer Guide Automotive and later at Web2Carz.com. He also worked as an industry analyst at Mintel Group and freelanced for About.com, CarFax, Vehix.com, High Gear Media, Torque News, FutureCar.com, Cars.com, among others, and of course Vertical Scope sites such as AutoGuide.com, Off-Road.com, and HybridCars.com. He’s an urbanite and as such, doesn’t need a daily driver, but if he had one, it would be compact, sporty, and have a manual transmission.

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5 of 23 comments

28-Cars-Later on Jul 18, 2024
Uh why does a $4 billion dollar laptop on wheels still have a gigantic transmission tunnel and claustrophobic cabin? One of the perks of "luxury" is space and with the platform underneath *becoming* the drivetrain there is no need for a transmission tunnel. A real design would leave everything in the cabin flat with some kind of sliding mechanism off of the center stack for whatever is needed (cupholders?).

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- MaintenanceCosts on Jul 18, 2024
  I hope this will change before too long, but people still associate open front cabin areas with Brougham barges and vans, and think that being surrounded by the most prominent possible sweeping console/dash combination is modern luxury.There's no packaging reason why the console area in this car couldn't be opened substantially. If you look at cutaway images of these cars, they do have high-voltage wiring running down the center of the car above the battery, but a small tunnel would be enough to accommodate that.
  
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- Macca on Jul 18, 2024
  'Laptop on Wheels' is a great appellation. Funny to me that now the expression of "True Luxury" (TM) is plastering screens everywhere, when screens are a dime-a-dozen. I don't think of my phone or laptop as particularly 'luxurious'.
  
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- 28-Cars-Later on Jul 18, 2024
  @MC I'm glad we agree. Despite any stigma I see Brougham level personal space/leg room as being a very nice perk to BEV. @Macca It really is amazing isn't? If in the 1980s or 90s one could have personal televisions in their car it would be considered an incredible luxury, yet today there are screens everywhere filled with what amounts to visual pollution so luxury would be to *not* have such screens. I rode a friend to the bar in my C70 over the weekend, now this is a man who owns a newer V12 Merc and some kind of turbo Cayenne and he said I love this simple center console but buttons and no screen for fingerprints.
  
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Legacygt on Jul 18, 2024
re: 31 minutes 10 percent to 80 percent when using DC fast charging. You point out that this is a bit longer than "other vehicles." That's true. But the overall range is pretty large. Something like the Ioniq 6 can charge 10-80 percent in 18 minutes but you're getting far fewer miles in that time.

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