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First Drive: The 2022 Mercedes-Benz EQS450+ Is A Beautiful Electric Porpoise

I Don’t Know What To Do With All This Tech

My husband used to be a sales associate at a Mercedes-Benz dealership in Montreal, and he’s spent the entire duration of our marriage telling me that no automaker is as luxuriously high-tech as Mercedes. I have never discounted this observation. I’ve just also never felt the need to drive an extremely tech-heavy car. I still have a hard time dealing with a tiny infotainment screen.

So I think it’s probably a little bit of an understatement to say that the EQS’s offerings are a bit overwhelming. After I laughed out loud at the exterior, I also laughed out loud at the absolutely massive Hyperscreen. I wanted to ask it if it was compensating for something. I wanted to ask why such a cute fella needs such a big screen.

Functionally, the Hyperscreen is great. A single piece of curved glass, it’s a gorgeous feat of technological innovation that works with rapid speed due to an eight-core processor and 24 gigabytes of RAM. You tap on anything, and there’s not going to be lag. You’re immediately transported to the place you chose to go in the infotainment system.

The graphics are also gorgeous, but again, it’s a little bit Much. There’s a screen for the driver, one of the passenger, and a tall screen in the center, and in those latter two, you can access everything from radio controls to vehicle settings to satellite maps to photo galleries to video games. I did poke around the Tetris game and found it took a while to load but was otherwise fun. I still can’t imagine myself using an infotainment screen instead of my phone for gaming, though.

Even worse, you still get a lot of glare, despite the fact that Mercedes tried its best to avoid that. There’s not really anything you’re going to be able to do about the reflection of the sun when it’s especially bright.

You can also navigate with conversational commands after saying, “Hey Mercedes.” As in, you can say something like, “Hey Mercedes, I want coffee,” and your car will find you the nearest coffee spots. I used to hate voice commands because it was next to impossible to actually get what you were asking for, but this modern iteration that you see on luxury cars has really changed the game. I don’t have to think up the robotic command I’d need to change the radio station. I can just say it.

The digital dashboard was also one hell of a feature. You can cycle through tons of different displays, most of which are just mind boggling. You can literally have your navigation map displayed on your dashboard — and I don’t mean you get a little box that has navigation. The whole screen turns into a map. I’m sure some folks will enjoy it, but it was massively overwhelming for me.

As was the augmented reality navigation, which feels a little bit more video game-y than anything else. Maybe I’m just too old to appreciate these things.

The Verdict

It’s difficult to offer a verdict for a car that I can’t compare to the other vehicles in its class, I can say that the 2022 Mercedes-Benz EQS450+ is a delightful vehicle that transforms much of what makes Mercedes special into a flagship luxury sedan — but it does feel like the German automaker couldn’t decide what it wanted to do. It tried to combine modern austerity with Benz’s traditional elegance, and it works… but it’s probably not going to work for everyone. It didn’t work for me, but it could very well work for you. And you know what? I respect a delightfully polarizing car.

At $36,000, Could This Low-Mileage 2005 Chevy SSR Pick Up Your Spirits?

At $36,000, Could This 2005 Chevy SSR Pickup Your Spirits?

Hemmings Classifieds out of West Chester, Pennsylvania, or go here if the ad disappears.

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At $13,500, Could You See This 1979 Ford Fairmont Futura In Your Future?

At $13,500, Could This 1979 Ford Futura Be In Your Future?

Los Angeles, California, Craigslist, or go here if the ad disappears.

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Ford Mustang Mach-E v The SUV: The First SUV That Feels Like A Muscle Vehicle

Ever since the new Ford Mustang Mach-E was unleashed onto the market, it’s been making headlines and raking in awards. It’s easy to understand why: Not only is it an SUV-meets-all-electric-vehicle, but it’s functional, technologically cutting edge, and beautiful to boot. It’s a fast, sleek sports SUV that offers versatility and comfortable seating for five.

The multifaceted team who brought the Mustang Mach-E to life wax poetic about the thoughtful and rigorous design process that went into the SUV. G/O Media Studios spoke to three designers who were instrumental in imagining the vehicle. Like the engineers, it’s clear that the designers approached creating the SUV with an eye trained on the user’s experience. The result is an SUV that’s truly special.

When Ford designers set out to reimagine the iconic Mustang, they were understandably daunted. Turning the company’s crown jewel — a muscle car — into an SUV was enormously ambitious. “Everybody is so used to the two-door coupe sports car,” said Rachael Robinson, an Interior Designer at Ford. “That was the biggest challenge — to bring the heritage into the interior.”

Illustration for article titled Ford Mustang Mach-E v The SUV: The First SUV That Feels Like A Muscle Vehicle — Photo: Ford

They started with a copious amount of design research, presenting various mock-ups and asking their audience what they wanted in an SUV. While conducting consumer research during the vehicle design phase, the team observed how users drove and interacted with the vehicle. “We wanted to understand our customer better,” Robinson explained. “We gave them objects that we asked them to put where they thought was best, and to act like they were driving in a normal scenario.”

Insights gleaned from the team’s research led to numerous details meant to make life easier for users. Drivers don’t like to put their purses and bags between the front seats next to their feet, so Ford interior designers incorporated flip-up armrests where bags can easily be stored. Similarly, areas were designed for both drivers and passengers to place their phones, complete with wireless charging pad. Speakers were moved to optimize space in the SUV’s door pockets for storing items such as umbrellas.

A unique feature of the Mustang Mach-E, its 4.7-cubic-foot frunk—or front trunk—is all lined, plastic, and furnished with a drainage hole. The logic behind it, the designers said, is for users to be able to store anything from dirty hiking boots to groceries, without worrying about getting the vehicle wet or grimy. The drain makes it easy to wash.

When customers buy the Mustang Mach-E, they’ll understand that their needs were taken into consideration. “They gave us feedback on where they wanted their things and what they wanted to do with it,” said Interior Designer Josh Greiner. “They’ll know that they helped design the SUV.”

Utility is the hallmark of an SUV, characterized by heftiness, huge wheel arches, visible clearance, and tons of storage space. Ford designers focused on the same practical features, but disguised behind a streamlined profile — bringing the Mustang’s signature style to the vehicle without losing its functionality.

“We were pushing the limits of the proportions and working with our counterparts in engineering to challenge things like roof height to give it a sleek profile,” exterior design manager Chris Walter told G/O Media Studios. The team created what Walter describes as a glossy, blacked out roof ditch. “It tricks the eye in that you’ve got this sleek silhouette,” Walter said. The resulting roofline looks like a coupe, despite a spacious interior with plenty of head space.

“You can tell … how rugged and utilitarian typical SUVs are by looking at them,” Greiner explained. “The Mustang Mach-E hides a lot of it. It doesn’t boast much.”

The luxurious simplicity applies to virtually every other feature of the SUV, with high-quality materials used on both the interior and exterior. New grains were chosen for the seats not only to look beautiful, but to add comfort. Every element is refined, precise, and detailed, Robinson told G/O Media Studios. The available B&O® Sound System by Bang and Olufsen soundbar* was one of Robinson’s favorite elements to design. “It has a very luxurious quality that you usually see in a nice home,” she said.

Another testament to the simplicity of the Mustang Mach-E is its instrument cluster. Unlike a large cluster, overcrowded with unnecessary data, it’s modern and minimal. “It’s pared down so that when you’re driving, you’re not distracted by extra graphics and colors,” Greiner said. “A big portion of the interior was making everything very calm and relaxing.”

To the interior design team, serenity — no bombastic, in-your-face features from complex dashboards to clunky vents — is a big part of what sets the Mustang Mach-E apart. “I think that’s the crux of the Mustang Mach-E: It’s more timeless than most SUVs are,” Greiner said.

Mustangs have a history of pushing the boundaries, and this vehicle is a natural extension of the Ford lineup that pushes the car behemoth into the future. The Mustang Mach-E brings the pony car lifestyle to new swaths of the market, including families. “It’s giving all those wonderful traits that people expect with their Mustang,” Walter said. “But it also plays to the strengths of what we do well at Ford, and that’s SUVs.”

Ford has been making cars for more than a century — ample time to refine both engineering and design — and it shows in the all-electric Mustang Mach-E, which combines performance with both style and function.

The accolades won by the Mustang Mach-E have affirmed that the designers’ choices were on point. ”I knew it was a good vehicle,” Greiner said. “I was hoping that people would see that — and it turns out people love it.”

Angela Wang is a freelance writer living in Queens.

The article is a sponsored collaboration between Ford and G/O Media Studios.