Mercedes-Benz EQC 2020 long-term review

Even so, although I was able – just – to stop before impact, there’s no escaping the harsh truth that everything I was doing or did might not have been enough to save him from injury a few seconds later.

That, in turn, got me thinking about the EQC’s safety systems. Just two weeks earlier, they had instigated an emergency stop as a mother and three young children walked on the pavement near the car. Yes, the kids were weaving about, but at no point had I thought they would spill onto the road. It was an experience that had left me shaken and grateful that there was nobody behind me. Now after the boy-on-bike incident, I was wondering why those same systems had this time done nothing to try to help me.

I know the driver must always take responsibility, but this mish-mash of intervention and non-intervention, each perfectly at the wrong time, has left a deep impression. While I know there’s more time and effort to be expended, it certainly raises further questions about the capabilities of self-driving tech and the risk of it causing incidents by over-reacting or not reacting at all, as the various radar systems evidently don’t have a good enough line of sight or make the right decisions.

I was lucky enough to get the best-case outcomes from the worst-case failures: no rear-end shunt from that emergency stop, no motoring into and over the boy and his bike. If, conversely, it ever steps in at the right time, I’ll forever be grateful.

But I have never relied on safety tech, and nor can I imagine doing so in my lifetime. Proof, to my mind at least, that the step from laboratory to real life is fraught with more complications than many imagine.

Love it:

Interior The scene-stealingly futuristic cabin is as plush as you could want.

Loathe it:

Form over function There are too many controls that are hard to access.


Mileage: 1261

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How far between pedals? - 28 October 2020

The EQC is far from the only culprit, but the scourge of the offset pedal needs highlighting. In this two-pedal set-up, my right foot is forced too far to the side to line up with the accelerator, prompting a kneegrinding pivot to come across to the brake. It doesn’t slow the movement down so is perfectly safe, but it does grind on my middle-aged joints.

Mileage: 1082

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Life with a Mercedes-Benz EQC: Month 1

Talk to me - 7 October 2020

I had high hopes for Mercedes’ voice recognition. But it’s proving a bit hit and miss so far; sometimes it picks up my commands – even complex postcodes – but at other times it gets confused. It’s early days, and I’m finding a more relaxed chatting voice is more effective than a carefully enunciated one. Let’s hope we learn to get along better in time.

Mileage: 698

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Welcoming the EQC to the fleet - 23 September 2020

Sometimes it takes a little jeopardy to push boundaries. Just the night before, I’d done a radio phone-in about electric cars, suggesting that they’re generally hugely capable and that for many more people than are buying them, they could be the perfect means of transport. And then I went to bed without checking my schedule for the next day.

So it was with no little amount of horror that I then awoke to discover that – after six months of commuting 12 paces from my bed to my chair – I was due in Northampton, 89 miles away, and that I hadn’t charged the rather lovely Mercedes-Benz EQC overnight. Did I grab the keys to my wife’s trusty 10-year-old Honda Civic, or did I live the change I wanted to see?

I’ll admit that my hand flicked from one set of keys to the other more than once but, after a calming few minutes online researching charger locations, I knew I had to live by my own words. My almost-calamitous organisation meant I had to leave 30 minutes earlier than otherwise but, if all went well, I’d be on time and have enough electrons whizzing around beneath my feet to get home again.

And – surprise, surprise – I drove, I stopped and a 35-minute stop at an Ionity/Polar charging station just off the M1 delivered around 70 miles of charge. Naysayers take note: there were 11 fairly-high-speed chargers at this well-known location, and I was the only one using them; come a short distance off the motorway these days and it feels like you’re never far from a chance for a rapid top-up. And while I waited, I was able to go online and clear my emails, so even having to leave early had upsides, too.

So now experience means my personal comfort zone on how far I’m prepared to go when I’m out and about is greatly expanded – and I can look forward to really enjoying the merits of the EQC, Mercedes’ first effort at an all-in electric vehicle and a pioneer of the firm’s EQ sub-brand.

Sure, it might look familiar to anyone who has ever clapped their eyes on a GLC, bar the coupé-like rear end and some nifty design flourishes, from the XL-sized badge, wheels and light arrangements through to the copper-coloured finishes on the air vents (to look like the internals of circuit boards, naturally), but Mercedes is far from the only one to have gone for a relatively conservative start to this journey.

The EQC is a car that has been eagerly anticipated on our fleet for some time, not just because it carries a large price tag and the promise of premium refinements and some cutting-edge tech, but also because it was declared the winner of an all-electric showdown with the Audi E-tron, Jaguar I-Pace and Tesla Model X by our road test team last year. It edged the verdict on account of being much the easiest of the cars to live with, as well as delivering decent, if not class-leading, quantities of those sometimes most diverse of characteristics: driver involvement and comfort and practicality.

No question, this is a car that makes you go ‘wow’. Since it arrived 10 days ago, there has been a line of passing kids peering through the windows (one of the more enjoyable distractions of working from home is earwigging on what future generations think about the cars on my driveway), and that in itself is clear proof of the journey that Mercedes, not so long ago the favoured choice for anyone who considered string gloves the height of fashion, has undergone in recent years. It’s also a trajectory that cars like the EQC must accelerate if this so-called ‘legacy’ car maker is to remain relevant into the future.

First impressions? To drive, it’s a cut above the average electric car – which means relaxing or fast on demand, with a frisson of dynamic excitement on offer, albeit one that can never hide its 2495kg kerb weight and sits short of what the I-Pace achieves. It’s a joy to be in, from its comfortable, beautifully upholstered seats to its abundance of practical cubbies. The massive, dasbhboard-length infotainment-and-instruments screen and the head-up display give a futuristic air, although I suspect it’s going to take time for the array of screen, dash and steering wheel buttons to all fall to hand intuitively. The voice-controlled ‘Hey Mercedes’ system helps with that but isn’t infallible as far as my southern English mumbling is concerned.

Range will be interesting, too. As it dials into my driving style, an indicated 210 miles is being shown, rather than the official 232. Consider also that it seems to be rating its capabilities around 5% too highly and you end up with a car that records a sub-200-mile figure; that’s potentially 25% short of what I’d consider ideal and less than the Kia e-Niro offers for half the price. It will be interesting to find out if I can learn to use the various driving modes more efficiently and dial my driving style into the car better, too.