2023 Mercedes-AMG EQE COTY Review: Fast as Hell, Yes. Is That Enough?
AMG’s all-electric sedan certainly swings a big hammer, but its overall package needs work.
Pros
- Mega quick
- Whisper quiet
- Wild lift-off oversteer
Cons
- Brake pedal moves during regen
- Overcomplicated controls
- Wild lift-off oversteer
This review was conducted as part of our 2024 Car of the Year (COTY) testing, where each vehicle is evaluated on our six key criteria: efficiency, design, safety, engineering excellence, value, and performance of intended function. Eligible vehicles must be all-new or significantly revised.
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The Mercedes-AMG EQE Sedan should have participated in our 2023 Car of the Year program, but a test car wasn't available at the time. So AMG's arguably most important electric vehicle to this point joined the fray for this go-around.
Why "most important"? It's the division's most affordable EV to date, though it isn't remotely cheap with a starting price of $110,250. Our test EQE totaled $125,640 thanks to its two most expensive options—carbon-ceramic brakes and the Air Balance package, which includes air purification, fragrances, a head-up display, four-zone climate control, and additional USB ports.
The AMG EQE features a 221-hp motor driving the front wheels and a 396-hp motor powering the rears for a total system output of 617 hp and 701 lb-ft of torque. A boost mode releases 677 hp and 738 lb-ft, though it's only available when performing "Race Start" launches. AMG says its permanent-magnet motors feature improved cooling to allow repeated acceleration without performance degradation. A 90.6-kWh battery pack feeds the motors; EPA driving range is 225 miles on a single full charge. Is this the kind of electric performance that car enthusiast dreams are made of? Not quite.
It's certainly lightning-quick, both in a straight line and around our figure-eight course, but our judges weren't sold on the complete package. "I keep thinking about the slower but more fun Lucid in the context of a heavy and expensive Mercedes that's trying too hard," buyer's guide director Zach Gale said. "Going from the clean Tesla Model 3 steering wheel to this one is jarring. Paddles, stalks, double bars of controls, and then more controls after that. Different segment, I know, but there's real complexity here. And because this is probably someone's daily driver, even in an AMG I need more range than 225 miles."
We also noted little things, such as door handles that require too much effort to open, and our panel was nearly unanimous in its "meh"—at best—opinion of the exterior styling. The regen braking feels like it's nothing, not enough, or too much, and judges continue to despise how the brake pedal moves on its own to match the regen deceleration.
"I would disqualify this car from winning just for the stupid brake pedal," features editor Scott Evans said. "There's nothing I want less when I'm driving a high-performance car quickly than chasing the stupid brake pedal around. And there's just no missing how heavy this car is when you near its limits."
You especially notice it thanks to a tendency for the rear end to break loose when you lift off the accelerator during corner entry, a handling trait some judges found hilarious and were able to exploit for slidey, smoky, sideways antics. Others, however, found its lift-off-oversteer behavior disconcerting, though everyone acknowledged few real-life owners are likely to encounter it. "I appreciate this car's stupid power and unnatural lateral grip, but both capabilities feel like they came from different cars and were simply smashed together like a performance casserole," deputy editor Alexander Stoklosa said. "The grip is strong, but each end of the car feels like it's doing something different. Mostly, driving the EQE quickly feels like sitting at the world's fastest dinner table—you're upright, and the chair height is, well, chairlike and tall."
A mixed bag, in other words, and too much of one to advance to this year's finalist round.
I’m not sure if this is bizarre, amusing, interesting, or none of those, but I remember picking up the inaugural issue of Automobile from the magazine rack at a Meijer grocery store in metro Detroit. At 9 years old in 1986, I was already a devoted consumer of car magazines, and this new one with the funky font on the cover caught my eye immediately. Longtime Automobile editor and present-day contributor Michael Jordan despises this story, but I once used his original review of Ferrari’s F40 as source material for a fifth-grade research project. I still have the handwritten report on a shelf at home. Sometimes I text MJ pictures of it — just to brighten his day. I’ve always been a car fan, but I never had any grand dreams, schemes, or plans of making it onto this publication’s masthead. I did earn a journalism degree from Michigan State University but at the time never planned to use it for its intended purpose. Law school made more sense to me for some reason. And then, thankfully, it didn’t. I blame two dates for this: May 1 and May 29, 1994. The former was the day Formula 1 star Ayrton Senna died. As a kid, I’d seen him race years earlier on the streets of Detroit, and though I didn’t follow F1 especially closely, the news of his demise shocked me. It’s the only story I remember following in the ensuing weeks, which just happened to lead right into the latter date. By pure chance, I had earlier accepted a friend’s invitation to accompany him and his father to the Indy 500. You’ve probably heard people say nothing prepares you for the sight of Indianapolis Motor Speedway, especially in real life on race day, with more than 250,000 spectators on the ground. It sounds like clichéd hyperbole, but it’s true. And along with my renewed interest in F1 in the wake of Senna’s death, that first encounter with Indy ignited a passion for motorsports I never expected to find. Without charting the entire course here, the upshot is that it led me to a brief stint working at a racing school, and then to Autoweek, where I worked as a full-time staffer for 13 years, the majority of them as motorsports editor. I was also a tester and reviewer of road cars, a fleet manager, and just about everything in between that is commonplace at automotive enthusiast outlets. Eventually, my work there led me to Automobile in early 2015 — almost 29 years to the day that I first picked up that funky new car mag as my mom checked-off her grocery list. What else do you probably not want to know? I — along with three other people, I’m told frequently — am an avid NBA fan, evidenced by a disturbingly large number of Nikes taking up almost all of my closet space. I enjoy racing/driving video games and simulators, though for me they’ll never replace the real thing. Road cars are cool, race cars are better. I’ve seen the original “Point Break” at least 147 times start to finish. I’ve seen “Top Gun” even more. The millennials on our staff think my favorite decade is the ’80s. They’re wrong. It’s the ’90s. I always have too many books to read and no time to do so. Despite the present histrionics, I do not believe fully autonomous cars will dominate our roads any time soon, probably not for decades. I used to think anyone who didn’t drive a manual transmission wasn’t a real driver, but I was wrong. I wish I could disinvent social media, or at least somehow ensure it is used only for good. And I appreciate being part of Automobile’s proud history, enjoying the ride alongside all of you.
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