Five things about the Mercedes-Benz EQC

The Mercedes-Benz EQC is set to arrive in Australia in the latter half of 2019. When it does, it will introduce buyers to a mix of old, established ideas and plenty of new-age thinking.

The Mercedes-Benz EQC will produce combined output of 300kW and 765Nm from its two asynchronous electric motors. That's sufficient to tow up to 1800kg and propel the 2.4-tonne SUV to 100km/h in 5.1 seconds. It's V8-level performance from a few years ago.

Mercedes-Benz claims the EQC will travel up to 450km between recharges. The 80kWh battery can recharge from 10 to 80 per cent capacity in 40 minutes using DC fast charging, but domestic recharging may take as long as 11 hours to reach 80 per cent of capacity.

Glad you asked...

Covered by an eight-year warranty, the batteries are lithium-nickel-manganese-cobalt-oxide items in pouch cells. There are six modules – two large modules at the front (72 cells), two smaller modules in the middle (48 cells) and two larger modules in two layers at the rear (72 cells).

Thermal management keeps the battery pack in an optimal operational state with both heating and liquid cooling for summer and winter conditions.

The battery housing weighs over 100kg and is constructed from aluminium bars welded together in an integrated crash structure. In the event of a crash, emergency-services crews can find 'rescue stickers' inside the flap for the recharge point and on the B pillars, for a web address from which a data sheet for the Mercedes-Benz EQC can be downloaded.

Power shuts off reversibly in light crashes, but will shut down irreversibly for heavier impacts. Benz engineers advise that there is no residual power outside the battery pack within one second of shut-down.

Initially, the Mercedes-Benz EQC will be built in Bremen (Germany), on the same production line as the C-Class and GLC, but a plant in Beijing (China) will also build the EQC. Last year, the Bremen plant built 420,000 vehicles, posting its seventh consecutive annual production record.

Bremen was chosen because the EQC shares many attributes with C-Class and GLC. It's also an incremental-volume product line that can be switched to manufacture at other facilities if demand for various Benz products determines that need.

"We are able to switch our production capacity from one plant to another. That, for us, is part of our strategy," says Arnhelm Mittelbach, Director Assembly, C-/E-Class and EQC.

Mittelbach says the Benz manufacturing plants specialise in building different types of vehicle architecture: front-wheel drive, rear-wheel drive, SUV and sports car.

"All these different plants... are grouped around lead plants, and that is the basis for our flexibility. For example, Bremen is lead plant for C-Class, the GLC and – soon – for the EQC."

Such production flexibility, according to Mittelbach, is facilitated through five 'enablers' – modular vehicle architecture, electric-vehicle modules, a global production network, production technology and a combination of transforming 'brownfield' sites with the establishment of new 'full-flex' manufacturing plants.

As an example of production technology, Mittelbach cites the 'paperless' factory, where workers use tablets to keep everything on track. This 'digitalisation' means customers can follow the progress of the car ordered as it proceeds along the production line – from start to finish.

The Mercedes-Benz EQC is built on a heavily modified derivative of the rear-wheel drive MRA platform. According to production boss Arnhelm Mittelbach, 85 per cent of parts for the EQC are new.

"The modular vehicle architecture is the basis for us... to produce our C-Class, the GLC and different derivatives on the same line. That is a lot, if you have these different models... [as] hybrid models, as diesel models, with gasoline engines and the electric vehicle as well."

"Because it needs a face," replies Robert Lesnik, Director of Exterior Design for the Mercedes-Benz EQC.

"We believe that as soon as you don't do a kind of grille – it doesn't matter if there's an air intake or not – it looks very anonymous... it looks completely different, it looks unnatural. There are that many companies out there that are doing exactly this. We are not going to do this and we believe that Mercedes always deserves a grille – and it doesn't matter whether there is an intake or not."

Actually, Jaguar subscribes to Herr Lesnik's views. The I-PACE has a grille, but Tesla's Model S, Model X and Model 3 have all taken the 'anonymous' path.