Mercedes Vision EQS Show Car

Vision EQS
Looking to 2039

While my automotive interests lie firmly in automobiles that rely on fossil fuels for their motivation, I just couldn’t ignore the latest concept car from Mercedes-Benz, the Vision EQS. The purity of its stretched “one bow” design is undeniable and the EQS just might hint at the shape of an S-Class of the not to distant future.

Frankly, I’m weary of seeing the hoards of stylistically neutral full size Teslas roaming the San Francisco Bay Area’s highways and byways. Mr. Musk has brilliantly out flanked the entire automobile manufacturing universe on the all electric front. But it’s time for a change in the all electric design aesthetic, and perhaps MB’s Design Chief Gorden Wagener and his gorgeous EQS will lead the way.

Are we headed toward a day when vehicle windows allowing a view of our surroundings are no longer required?

 

An electrifying design with attitude and a future S-Class design theme? Continuous ‘lightbelt’ circumnavigates the car connecting the LED matrix grille panel with rear light clusters. MB’s rooflines continue to shrink.

Chasing CO2 Neutrality

Mercedes-Benz has declared via its “Ambition 2039” to achieve climate neutral mobility in 20 years. The slick EQS provides a glimpse of this future. With an output of 350kW from its front and rear axle mounted engines, that future is also one of silent supercar performance. 0-100 km/h takes just 4.5 seconds and MB claims a comfortable operating range of 700km. Take that Mr. Musk. And an 80% charge is rumored to require just 20 minutes.

With this massive commitment to electric must come a viable charging network which Mercedes, in a joint venture with with BMW Group, Ford and Volkswagen Group, is addressing with IONITY, a rapid charging network throughout Europe. 100 of the planned 400 charging parks planned by the end of 2020 are operational. It’s all very interesting.

Clever Details

Achieving a reliable autonomous driving experience is the still elusive goal for all manufacturers. To this end the EQS provides the driver with “highly-automated” driving at level 3 on “longer motorway” journeys (i.e. sustained highway trips) and the system can be scaled up to the holy grail of autonomous driving, fully-automated or “eyes-off” motoring. Eventually…

Other visual cues include elegantly styled 24″ spoked wheels pushed out flush with the smooth unadorned side flanks of the car and a dazzling grille face formed in a single sweeping surface and integrating 940 individual LEDs arrayed in a three dimensional grid. The rear lights cleverly comprise 229 flush mounted LEDs each in the shape of MB’s identifying star, sans the outer ring.

Squinting your eyes and looking over MB’s design evolution over the last styling cycle, you can detect the undeniable rise in coachwork beltlines and the gradual reduction in roof height. The EQS closes the gap between roof and body beltline ever further. Are we headed toward a day when vehicle windows allowing a view of our surroundings are no longer required? Motoring in 2039 might be a strange experience indeed.

The EQS interior again allowed Design Chief Gorden Wagener to indulge in what must be some sort of luxury yacht fetish. His Vision 6 cabriolet featured a similarly outfitted interior environment. Clever cues include plus and minus symbols for accelerator and brake pedals. I see a ‘pulled taffy’ aesthetic throughout the interior. Definitely unique.

LEDs abound within exterior lighting, 1,169 in total for grille and tail lighting. First level of grille lighting cleverly consists of tiny stars and that theme is repeated within the flush rear ‘tail’ lights.

roy spencer/editor mercedesheritage.com
photography/daimler media

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