Wired

WE TEST DRIVE THE NEW MERCEDES-BENZ EQC 400 4MATIC – THE MARQUE’S FIRST ALL-ELECTRIC CAR – IN OSLO

- Gautam Sharma

MERCEDES-BENZ has forged an enviable legacy of building and selling cars powered by combustion engines, but did you know the Stuttgart-based marque had electric vehicles on offer way back in 1906? It’s another story that the three-pointed-star didn’t subsequently pursue the genre at the time as the huge progress made with petrol engines in the early 1900s meant there was no real need for battery-powered cars in its line-up.

Fast-forward to today and the case is, of course, very different. Diminishing fossil-fuel reserves, plus stringent controls on vehicle emissions (especially in Europe and North America) have sparked a big push to get EVs on the market in large volumes. Tesla led the charge, but now the Euro manufacturers have leaped onto the bandwagon – Jaguar, Audi, BMW, Renault, Nissan, and Chevrolet are just a few of the manufacturers with electric vehicles in showrooms, albeit not in all markets.

Somewhat surprisingly – given its track record as a pioneer when it comes to debuting new tech – Mercedes has been late to the EV party, as the brand-new EQC crossover is its first mass-market offering in the segment. Slightly tardy it may be, but Merc is now plotting a comprehensive onslaught on the EV sector as the brand’s EQ family (‘EQ’ is Merc’s acronym for ‘Electric Intelligence’) is set to mushroom to 10 models by 2022.