Beating Around The Hush

Cautious? Or Clever? They’re the two central themes that need to be probed when considering Mercedes’ first-ever mainstream EV.

- Ash Westerman

The ‘cautious’ question is unavoidable, given the company’s decision to not build the EQC on a bespoke EV architecture, thus missing out on potential packaging advantages. Instead, this car 1s, in essence, a GLC with dual electric motors and an 80kWh hour battery. So there’s no frunk, for example, and the second-row floor is still split by what was the transmission tunnel.

But on the flip side, taking this path has allowed Mercedes to build the EQC on the GLC production line, ensuring greater production control, as well as build an EV so, well, ‘normal’, it has potential to attract customers for whom an electric SUV may have otherwise been a tech step too far.

And now we’ve driven it on Aussie roads, we can confirm what was evident from Inwood’s first drive in Norway (Wheels, July): it’s a brilliantly polished, hugely accomplished SUV, delivering a level of cabin quietness and refinement that the likes of Bentley and Rolls-Royce would envy.