By Paul Gover.
It’s easy to enjoy the Mercedes-Benz EQA.
The compact SUV looks good, is calm and relaxing to drive, is nippy in traffic and frugal on the highway, and has all the ’stuff’ you could possibly need in a luxury runabout.
Best of all, for a lot of people, it’s a fully battery-electric car.
It follows the EQC into Australia at the tip of an electric revolution at the world’s oldest carmaker that promises to make things tough for Tesla and any other prestige carmaker that is joining the transition from internal combustion to batteries.
So it has instant bragging rights and it’s hard to argue against the combination of a three-pointed star with SUV practicality and none of the stinky links to petrol pumps.
Of course, that is, provided you have more than $80,000 for your trip to the showroom.
It’s a lot of money for most new-car shoppers, but looks like better value for Benz buyers and even people who are cross-shopping against something like the electric Nissan Leaf at $50,000.
So it’s no surprise that the EQA 250 – there will be an all-wheel drive EQA 350 later this year – is sold out into 2022 to people who are making a conscious switch to batteries and also shoppers who went to Benz to buy a GLA with a combustion engine and switched in the showroom to electric after discovering it was only an extra $7000.
There are a growing number of electric cars in Australia and a growing number of fans, although sales are still tiny.
Sliding into the battery Benz is a landmark event because it has set the benchmark for carmakers through most of its history, not just as a luxury brand but as a technology innovator that has brought all sorts of safety systems – led by anti-skid brakes but including many of today’s driver-assistance tools – to the road.
The basic mechanical package is lifted from the GLC, the second-smallest of the Mercedes SUVs, with around 350 kilograms of batteries as the heart of the switch to the EQ family. The body is obviously different, starting from the blanked-off grille, the boot space is tight because of the battery, and it’s only front-wheel drive with a single-speed transmission and alloy wheels which draw attention as well as improving efficiency.
On the road, the EQA is nice. Very nice.
It quickly overcomes the inevitable ‘range anxiety’ with a computer readout that predicts close to 400 kilometres of range, impresses with a cabin that can be high-tech fun or pared back for relaxing luxury, and has one of the better looking coupe-ish SUV bodies in its class.
Thankfully, it has the plush ride and quiet travel that has been lost to many Benzes – where an AMG sports pack with thumpy low-profile tyres has become almost compulsory – and that gives it an even-more unique position.
It’s not as straight-line fast as some battery cars, which has become the benchmark measure of a ’sporty’ car in 2021, but it is more than swift enough. And it comes with a three-year subscription to the Chargefox public EV charging network.
The cornering grip is good, the steering feel is good, and the response is good for overtaking or hills.
The cabin is suitably Benz in the equipment and fittings, from giant display screens to punchy sound, and it’s good to be able to monitor the way the electric package is working. There are lots of displays and read-outs in the various menus to keep yourself amused and impress your friends.
My favourite is the readout for battery capacity, which triggers my personal challenge to drain the least from the battery on each trip. That’s helped by shift paddles behind the wheel that work for three-level regenerative braking instead of gear shifting.
So each trip in the EQA, as well as being a luxury drive, can also be a challenge of your concentration and driving ability. A win-win for me.
On the charging front, it takes a day to fully brim the battery from a household plug but that drops dramatically to just over four hours with a single-phase charge box that comes from Mercedes at $1450.
The maximum range is a claimed 480 kilometres, which is easy to believe after driving more than 300 on a single charge.
The EQA is not the best electric car I have tested – that’s a personal tie between the Jaguar i-Pace and Tesla Model 3, with the Porsche Taycan still to come – but it is more than good enough to prove that Benz is serious about electrification and doing exactly the good stuff that is expected from the three-pointed star.
THE BASICS
MERCEDES-BENZ EQA 250
Price: $76,800
Engine: 66.5 kWh battery
Power: 140kW/375Nm
Transmission: single-speed, front-wheel drive
Position: compact electric SUV
Plus: good range, Benz in every area
Minus: small boot, not cheap
THE TICK: An easy yes
Score: 8/10