Mercedes has unveiled a car that it claims can travel more than 1,000 km on a single charge to convince customers that a lack of charging infrastructure doesn’t have to be an obstacle to buying a battery-powered vehicle.
The range, which is well above the industry average of around 300 km, was calculated using internal digital simulations of real traffic conditions.
In the spring, however, a street-legal version of the Vision EQXX will be presented, which will be able to drive almost twice the distance of a fully charged Tesla Model S.
The car’s “tool kit”, which was developed with the help of the Mercedes Formula 1 and Formula E championship teams, is to be used in a compact model similar to the A-Class, the Stuttgart-based car maker continues.
This vehicle will be available from 2024 or 2025, but will likely not have the full range of the prototype. Instead, it will use the density of the EQXX’s battery and solar roofs to build a more efficient and lighter car.
“All the elements that we see in this car will make it into series production,” said Markus Schäfer, Mercedes’s Chief Technology Officer.
“We probably don’t need all that range in a compact car, but now we can downsize the battery, we can even have a much smaller battery than we see here in the EQXX. . . That means lower costs in the vehicle. “
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Last year, Mercedes launched an electric version of its classic EQS sedan that can cover more than 650 kilometers on a single charge. The battery of the Vision EQXX has 50 percent less volume and is 30 percent lighter than that of the EQS, according to the company.
Mercedes is not the first to claim to have cracked the 1,000-kilometer mark. In November, China’s Guangzhou Automobile Group unveiled the Aion LX Plus, which it claims can travel more than 1,000 km on a single charge.
However, the company says its technological advancement will support a number of small and medium-sized electric vehicles in the years to come, and that the breakthrough shows the strength of its supercar construction arms.
Mercedes, which has promised to be an all-electric brand by 2030 if “market conditions permit”, has come under fire for owning a Formula 1 team that runs fossil fuel cars.
The fact that several components of the EQXX, such as the inverter, were developed with racing teams shows “that innovations from motorsport, where the drive trains are already heavily electrified, are of direct relevance to road vehicle development,” continued Schäfer.
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