Ride Time: The All-Electric 2025 Mercedes-Benz G580 Hits the Snow!
We’ve seen Mercedes-Benz's new electric G-wagen SUV before—but even better than seeing it, we hit the snow.
The Mercedes-Benz G-Wagen is going electric, and as such the company decided to stretch out the new model’s introduction for as long as it possibly can. We’ve already spent a bunch of time riding around as passengers inside the upcoming G580; this review adds to that, as Mercedes isn’t letting any non-employees behind the G-Class’ wheel until the global drive program commences at the end of this month. Still, the fine people behind the three-pointed star shipped yours truly to the Arctic Circle to do another ride along (plus actually drive the new G550), in freezing conditions almost entirely on snow and ice.
0:00 / 0:00
Mercedes brought along two blue-camo-wrapped 2025 G580s for our drive from Saltstraumen, Norway, to the frozen-lake test tracks found in Arjeplog, Sweden, where the manufacturer performs the bulk of its winter testing. Some engineers drove the two all-electric Gs and two G550s out from Arjeplog to pick me up, along with three other journalists.
Any drama that might have existed (will we make it?) was eliminated immediately from this story. One of the G580s was an older test mule, and the other was a much more recent version. The software was identical between the two vehicles, as was the bulk of the hardware, but the older one had been through a couple hundred thousand more kilometers of testing than the new one. Also, one had the traditional round spare tire cover hanging off its rear, while the other had the I-don’t-like-the-way-it-looks squircle carrier that can be used to store charging cables. Personally? Not a fan.
The Electric Challenge
As Mercedes has stated previously, the big challenge in developing the new electric G-Wagen was stuffing all the electric stuff into the SUV’s existing dimensions without altering a thing, including keeping the G’s ladder frame. According to the engineers, this was quite difficult. Luckily, they were able to place the battery into the frame’s width and seal it so the G580 can ford rivers just like a regular G-Wagen. Maximum off-road capability is the goal of any G-Wagen (you hear that, Erewhon parking lot?), and so Mercedes went with four electric motors, one for each wheel—just like the Rivian R1 platforms.
The power inverter, DC-DC converter, and vehicle control modules are all shoved under the hood where the gasoline/diesel engines used to reside. We popped the hood to have a look, and there’s nothing to see, as all that electronic goodness sits under a cover. Battery size is in the 120-kWh neighborhood, though it’s unclear if that’s gross or net (I’m thinking net, i.e., usable). Range is expected to be around 275 miles, which is right in line with the Rivian R1S’ 285 miles for the quad-motor version on off-road tires. There’s still no word if the G580 will be available on street tires, but it probably will be, and that will likely increase the range. Because it’s such a direct comparison, the R1S on 21-inch street tires sees its range increase to 328 miles.
Power Weight, and More
We finally know the power output of the 2025 Mercedes-Benz G580 electric: 579 horsepower and 859 lb-ft of torque. This is slightly more power and much more torque than the current G63 makes: 577 hp and 627 lb-ft. The upcoming mild hybrid G63 might squeak out a few more horses (we don’t have the official output, but the twin-turbo V8 still makes 577 hp, though there’s another 20 hp from the hybrid motor), but nowhere near as much torque (627 lb-ft plus 148 lb-ft from the motor, though remember the combined torque output for hybrids is never a simple sum of two numbers). All the above means the G580 will probably be quicker in a straight line than the G63, though the EV will weigh more than the internal-combustion AMG SUV (an estimated 5,800 pounds for the upcoming G63 versus approximately 6,600 for the G580; the dual-motor Tesla Cybertruck weighs 6,660, FYI). Also, don’t be surprised if a G65 or G650 electric G shows up with mega power. As it stands now, from least to most money, the G-Wagens are the G550 (ICE), G580 (EV), and G63 (ICE).
You gotta get the G63 because it sounds so much better, right? Not so fast. The G580 has a switchable feature called G-Roar, which is literally the G63’s engine and exhaust note piped in rather convincingly via the Burmester sound system. It truly sounds just like a side-piped AMG G-Wagen. Best of all, you can switch it off completely and drive in relative silence. Relative because the four electric motors do make noise. This should come as no surprise, but the 2025 Mercedes G580 with G-Roar turned off sounds a bit like the quad-motor Rivian R1 vehicles. On the road, from the passenger seat, nothing occurs to suggest you’re in anything other than a G-Wagen. The G580 is fully familiar in terms of what we’ve come to know with the W463-generation G Mercedes introduced in 2019.
More Details
Speaking of chassis codes, enough has changed with all the 2025 Gs that they’re now referred to internally as W465. There are four differences (besides the optional, lame-looking squared-circle charging cable thing) with the G580s body. The A-pillars are more aerodynamic, there’s an added lip where the windshield meets the roof to make that section more slippery, the hood is reshaped slightly, and there are some rear-fender vents. The first two changes—A-pillars and roof lip—are being transferred to all new G-Wagens, but even knowing what you’re looking for it’ll be tricky to tell. Despite the changes, for people who use G-Wagens primarily to cruise around Beverly Hills, they won’t notice a difference between EV and ICE Gs. But what if you go off-road? There are big changes, at least in ice and snow.
The most interesting fact about the G580 is that it has four two-speed transmissions. According to an engineer, Mercedes achieved better low-speed motor control with two gears than one. When you push the button that replaces the one that previously locked the center differential (this whole space is now dubbed “Offroad Cockpit,” and yes, Mercedes misspelled off-road on purpose) to put the G580 in Low, you’re changing gears on all four transmissions. Wild, eh? There’s precedent for this—the Porsche Taycan has a two-speed transmission on the rear axle for the rear motor, but four transmissions on one vehicle is a lot. Notice how when the engineers in Stuttgart want EV motors to behave a certain way they turn to hardware, i.e., physical transmissions. Meanwhile, the American EV-makers—Tesla, Rivian, and Lucid—manage to do everything via software.
Shut Up and Drive
We sadly didn’t do any rock-crawling on this trip, but we spent way more time than you’d imagine a group of adults would goofing around doing G-turns. You might know them better as tank-turns, but the driver-side wheels rotate in one direction, the passenger-side wheels in the opposite, and the big G-Wagens spin in a circle on their own axis. After watching one or two, I jumped into the passenger seat to experience it from the inside. It’s wild though, according to the engineers, much smoother on snow than on bumpy dirt where the tires can find purchase. To perform a G-turn you press the G-Turn button that occupies the location of the rear-differential locker on normal Gs. Then a screen pops up asking if you really want to do the thing you just commanded the truck to do. Once you accept, pull the left paddle to spin left ways, or the right paddle to go the other way, tap the gas, and wheee!, you’re a top. This is a silly, pointless feature, and I love that Mercedes is putting it into production vehicles. ’Sup, Rivian?
There have been a handful of times in my career when an EV has simply blown me away. The first was when our long-term Tesla Model S got a software update that added geofencing, meaning that suddenly in places where previously you’d manually raise the suspension to, say, clear a high driveway, now the car did it itself. It was the over-the-air update that blew me away because of how much the car’s functionality improved. Another moment was whipping through Turn 5 at Laguna Seca in the passenger seat of a 1,000+ hp Lucid Air prototype. It was insane to the point that I remember thinking, “Who needs gasoline?” But the one that really stands out was drifting/hooning my own Rivian R1T around El Mirage, the famous dry lakebed. I’ve slid plenty of cars around on dry lakes before, but never with so much control. We happened to have another pretty good off-roader with us (the then brand-new Range Rover with the twin-turbo BMW V-8), and it felt sloppy drunk.
Randomly, the day after the dry lake drift fest, I found myself on a call with six Rivian engineers. “Why was the truck so good?” I asked. They explained the real advantage of four motors is the computer knows what surface the vehicle is on. Huh? See, if said computer is sending X amount of energy to a given wheel, then based on each wheel’s rotational speed the computer knows exactly what sort of surface it’s on. If X amount of power sent results in Y rotation, that means sand. Or asphalt. Or mud. Or grass. Or snow, whatever. Up to about 15 degrees of yaw, too. In other words, the Rivian knew it was doing 80-mph power slides on packed sand. Amazing.
The G580 blew me away just as much, only this time it was on ice. On the Arjeplog test track there’s a massive ice donut. I’d guess it’s about 1,500 feet in diameter, large enough that there’s a second, smaller frozen donut to drive inside of it. The inner half of the big donut is polished ice, a surface where if you don’t have studded tires, you have no traction. I confirmed this when I tried to drift the gas-powered G550 around the outer half and sometimes slid onto the polished part. At that point I was just along for the ride. Not so in the G580. Sadly, regrettably, I wasn’t allowed to drive it, but from the passenger seat I sat and watched—eyes bugging out of my head—as the engineer steered the four-motor G at 62 mph on ice. In other words, on regular off-road tires he was in control of the vehicle on the slickest surface. Like the Rivian, the computer knew it was on ice.
Another test-track section was a large rectangular strip of polished ice, probably as long as a football field and half as wide. A different engineer in a different electric G-Wagen drove across it, weaving back and forth, effectively drawing a meandering S pattern as he went, like a sidewinder across the sand. Then he turned around, turned the traction/stability control off, and drove back over the same S pattern. I made him do it again a few times because I couldn’t believe it. He commented that it’s so easy to perform, even “Lieschen Müller could do it.” “Lieschen Müller” is Austrian slang for your average Joe. The point is, on ice, the G580 has a huge safety advantage over other vehicles—even other Gs.
What Else?
There’s a third button in the Offroad Cockpit that Mercedes is staying mum about, claiming it wants to save something for the actual vehicle launch. It’s the button that in conventional Gs activates the front locker. I’m educated-guessing here, but I believe it turns on some sort of tight-turn mode. If you think about the fun yet pointless G-turn, the same functionality could be used to spin the G580’s wheels more slowly in different directions. This would allow the G580 to make it around a corner or an obstacle without having to bother with multipoint turns. Similar technology—where the inside rear-wheel would lock during a turn—has been around on other off-roaders for years (the 200 Series Toyota Land Cruiser has it, for example). But spinning the outside rear wheel backward during a turn—or both opposite side wheels—would be quite effective, if not fantastic, on a tight trail. Anyhow, that’s my guess.
That’s all the electric G news that’s fit to print, for now. Stay tuned for a whole bunch more, coming real soon.
When I was just one-year-old and newly walking, I managed to paint a white racing stripe down the side of my father’s Datsun 280Z. It’s been downhill ever since then. Moral of the story? Painting the garage leads to petrolheads. I’ve always loved writing, and I’ve always had strong opinions about cars.
One day I realized that I should combine two of my biggest passions and see what happened. Turns out that some people liked what I had to say and within a few years Angus MacKenzie came calling. I regularly come to the realization that I have the best job in the entire world. My father is the one most responsible for my car obsession. While driving, he would never fail to regale me with tales of my grandfather’s 1950 Cadillac 60 Special and 1953 Buick Roadmaster. He’d also try to impart driving wisdom, explaining how the younger you learn to drive, the safer driver you’ll be. “I learned to drive when I was 12 and I’ve never been in an accident.” He also, at least once per month warned, “No matter how good you drive, someday, somewhere, a drunk’s going to come out of nowhere and plow into you.”
When I was very young my dad would strap my car seat into the front of his Datsun 280Z and we’d go flying around the hills above Malibu, near where I grew up. The same roads, in fact, that we now use for the majority of our comparison tests. I believe these weekend runs are part of the reason why I’ve never developed motion sickness, a trait that comes in handy when my “job” requires me to sit in the passenger seats for repeated hot laps of the Nurburgring. Outside of cars and writing, my great passions include beer — brewing and judging as well as tasting — and tournament poker. I also like collecting cactus, because they’re tough to kill. My amazing wife Amy is an actress here in Los Angeles and we have a wonderful son, Richard.Read More
