The company decided newly launched vehicles will be electric-only from 2025 onwards.
German luxury carmaker Mercedes-Benz today officially introduced the EQS, which has the lowest drag coefficient of any production vehicle, to China, offering a new option for the ultra-luxury electric vehicle (EV) market.
Mercedes-Benz offers four versions of the model with retail prices of CNY 1,079,600 (USD 169,500), 1,193,600, 1,317,600 and 1,518,600 respectively.
As a comparison, the ET7, the flagship sedan of China's local premium EV brand NIO, is currently offered in two versions with pre-subsidized prices of CNY 448,000 and CNY 526,000 respectively.
This means that the starting price of the Mercedes-Benz EQS is 2.4 times that of the NIO ET7.
The unique body design of the Mercedes-Benz EQS gives it a low wind resistance coefficient of 0.20, which is the best result for production vehicles.
The data released by NIO at the end of September shows that the wind resistance coefficient of NIO ET7 is 0.208, which is tied with Model S Plaid for second in the world.
The Mercedes-Benz EQS has a length, width and height of 5,216/1,926/1,512 mm respectively and a wheelbase of 3,210 mm. For reference, the NIO ET7 measures 5,098/1,987/1,505 mm and 3,210 mm in wheelbase.
It features three OLED screens in the interior, and the on-board system is equipped with an 8-core CPU and 24 GB of RAM, and uses an NVIDIA Xavier AI chip that learns the driver's car habits and actively prompts for seat heating and air conditioning functions.
The model is available in a single-motor version and a dual-motor version with 333 hp (245 kW) and 524 hp (385 kW) and peak torque of 568 Nm and 855 Nm, respectively.
Its dual-motor version accelerates from 0 to 100 km/h in 4.3 seconds and has a top speed of 210 km/h.
The EQS is equipped with a battery pack of up to 111.8 kWh and has a CLTL range of up to 849 km and a WLTP range of up to 780 km.
Its charging system is based on a 400-volt high-voltage system that can replenish from 10 percent to 80 percent in 48 minutes with 110 kW DC charging; it can replenish from 10 percent to 80 percent in as little as 37 minutes at certain charging power conditions.
It is equipped with an L2 driving assistance system, including adaptive cruise control, lane-keeping, and automatic lane change assistance; in the future, L3 driving assistance will be available with the addition of a LiDAR module.
The EQS is expected to be officially launched for sale in China in early 2022.
This article was first published by Phate Zhang on CnEVPost, a website focusing on new energy vehicle news from China.