FIRST LOOK Mercedes EQG Tank Turns And ALL The Torque

The G-Wagon is a car that tells the world, F you, I'm richer than you, I'm higher up than you and would you mind getting out of my way. So why has Mercedes built a zero emission all-electric one? Do the people who buy a car like this really care about either saving the planet or exploring it in a more responsible way? Well, maybe the Pope might fancy one. You know, a new company car to impress his boss. This is the first all-electric version of the G-Class, as Mercedes now prefers to call it, since the Geländewagen was first born way back in 1979. And being wary of all that heritage and that emotional baggage, Mercedes set the electric version a very serious mission. Zero compromise. Yep, the engineers decided to make life very difficult for themselves and decided that this had to be at least as good off-road, if not better, than an internal combusting G-Wagon. Now, that is a car that ultimately looks like it's been around since the 70s but was actually totally re-engineered in 2018 to have more technology, more safety, and now it's been updated. There's a new grille, there's better aero, apparently. So yeah, let's go have a closer look. Now, frankly, the being-just-as-good-as-the-petrol-one-on-road bit isn't too worrying, because the G-Class, or G-Wagon if you prefer, is deliberately not a very good road car. It rolls around a lot, it doesn't ride very well, and it has the aerodynamic performance of Pavarotti doing a stage dive. So you're going to want to know how to spot an electric G and it won't be with any EQG badges or anything like that. That name is dead. This is simply the G580, because that's the amount of horsepower it's got. Visual differences then. Black headlight surrounds this sort of aero-ish grille. The bonnet has a steeper ramp on it to help deflect air over the dead-flat windscreen and, actually, real nerd point. There's lots of nerd points on this car, I promise you. Number one, up here there's a kind of spoiler above the roof gutter. That helps take air over the top and it reduces some of the G-Wagon's deafening wind noise. If you come down the side here, look at this. They've kept the classic G door handles, but you do now have keyless entry. That's annoying, they've locked it. What's spoilsports? Anyway, look at this. There's now a hole in the side of the G-Wagon. They've put this vent in to desperately try and help this thing cut through the air. And let's go and have a look at the back. And round the back, extra geek point, the reversing camera now lives there because of the Koreans. They have got some new laws that say it has to stick out further so they couldn't leave it on the tailgate anymore. This jet of water will wash it. That's boring. This isn't. Oh, look, you now have a square wheel on the back of a G-Wagon. What's this? Well, that's because this actually isn't a spare wheel cover anymore. No, this is where your charging cable goes and probably, judging given how lots of people use their G-Wagons, it's probably where they'll put the minibar. Oh, before we jump inside and I show you what's new in there, I thought I'd show you under the steeper bonnet, you've got kind of Batman's eight-pack. Ignore that. This is the gubbins. And particularly, the bit I'm interested in is this little black box, because that is your sound speaker. That is what they're calling the G-Raw. And they're saying they didn't want the electric G to sound like a spaceship, for it to do one of those kind of new age Hans Zimmer engine notes as you whoosh along. So apparently, it's going to make a bit of a aggressive, get out of my way grumble, which normal G-Wagon folk will be very, very pleased about. Right, let's get inside, I think. Oh, that's heavy. Now, this might be the biggest improvement in the new G. You ready? No slam. Gentle pull on the door and it closes. If you've ridden in a G-Wagon at any point since 1979, you'll know that this normally requires you to have, well, absolute he-man strength, but look at that, you can close it with one finger. And that is because they've actually enlarged that vent in the rear pillar of the car, and that helps equalize the air pressure. So when you slam the door, this huge flat panel doesn't kind of get blocked by its own seal. That is a really, really useful feature. Now, let's talk about some technology. There's so many new kind of screens, readouts in here. They've played with the front camera so you can look through the bonnet like you could on a Land Rover a few years ago. You can record your off-road, I don't know, excursions if you want to do that sort of thing. And of course, everything else is just as you'd find in any other Benz. You've got the quite annoying touch-sensitive steering wheel. There's 8 million different combinations of dials up here, but this I've got set on the off-road setting at the moment. I can see what angle I'm sat at. I can see how much wading depth I've got to go because this will actually wade 850 millimetres of water. That's 150 more than a petrol G-Wagon. So already electric is making this thing better off-road. That brings me to down here. You see, if you're familiar with a G-Wagon, you'll know this is where those famous diff lock buttons normally live. One, two, and you lock up the diffs and you're almost unstoppable. The thing is that a diff lock in a normal car, it's either on or off. It's 100% or zero. But this, because it's using four electric motors, not one, not two, but four electric motors, each of which has its own two-speed gearbox, one for range and one for off-road low range, then you've just got absolute adaptability for any situation. Then, of course, they've decided, let's have a play. So you've got something called G-Turn, and this basically allows you to either lock up the rear wheels and then have the fronts pivot the car around like it's a ballet dancer, or you can drive the wheels on one side of the car forward and another one backward. You choose which by just pulling a paddle and then flooring the throttle. Then the thing will spin in its own length like a tank for two turns. They'll only allow you 720 degrees of spinning because they know that like that Maybach bouncing suspension stuff, people aren't going to use it to get them out of a tricky spot off-road. They're going to use it to show off on TikTok. So if you want to go viral, that's the button for you. Otherwise, there's new trim, there's blue stitching to prove you're in the electric one. You can have the Dolby Atmos sounds that Mercedes is working on right now. So you get this surround sound experience and the ambient lighting and stuff joining in. It's all terribly clever, but ultimately they've left it alone in here. People wanted it to feel like a G-Wagon. I feel like I can see all the way to Mexico. I feel like I'm in a very, very expensive item. I can already feel myself getting aggressive and entitled. It's doing the job. Just wanted to pop back over to this one because if like me, you find the whole AMG-ification of the G-Wagon a little bit tasteless. Look at this. Look at the base version. This is still an electric G, but you can have it in this much less sporty style. I really like it. Look, you get these much smaller, more purposeful wheels with the chunkier tyres, no great big running boards. So it's actually better off-road. I think it looks fantastic with no carbon here, with this lovely like dusty safari paint, the black roof, looks more like an authentic G from the good old days and best detail, proper spare wheel cover on this one, but just retro, screams 80s, 90s safari wagon to me. I think this might be the most tasteful G-Wagon in existence, electric or not. That's all very well off-roading tastefully, of course, but if your 116 kilowatt hour battery pack gets punctured by a sharp rock, then you might set fire to half of Nevada. So how have they armoured it? Have a look under this because it is proper military grade stuff. You've got this enormous carbon composite armour plate underneath. That's got to be around an inch thick and then a huge aluminium plate above that. So, I mean, just look at the amount of material between you and what you're off-roading over. Not only is that there to protect the battery, it's actually there to help the car off-road. Mercedes said it was designed to protect all those precious cells, but they found that when they were testing this thing, you could just basically sit the car down on rocks and then use the G-turn function to pivot and pirouette around. So you've taken something that was designed to stop the battery getting a hole and used it as a seat so the car can sit on it before it heads off on its way. I mean, that's some proper heavy duty engineering under there. Now, as usual with an EV, there are loads of silly numbers, so much so I've had to write them down in a little black book so I can tell them to you. Like I said, four motors, 1164 metres of torque. What's that in old money? Well, this has got 859 pounds-feet of torque. But what I love, the power figure. At last, we have a badge on the back of a Mercedes that means something. It's 580 horsepower. Okay, 579, but close enough. 0-60, 4.7 seconds, which is not bad for something that weighs 3,090 kilos. Yeah, ouch. That's why it has zero kilos towing capacity, because it just would weigh too much once you stuck a trailer on it. And yet, interestingly, for all this authenticity about off-roading, rear-wheel drive most of the time, the electric G, just to help that range, 460 kilometres, this thing's rated at. Okay, hopefully that's given you a brief run through of all the changes they've made for the electric G. It's pretty comprehensive, isn't it? Is this a good use of electric technology? I mean, there's some pretty cool gimmicks, aren't there? Sorry I can't show you the G turning today, but these are prototypes. And as you've seen, this one's had a chunk cut out the side to show you the battery armour. I do just find it amazing, though, that we live in a world where you can buy an electric, you know, silence-caring, zero-emission version of this car. Or if that offends you, if you think that that's a travesty against the great name of G, you can just choose to have one with a twin-turbo V8 there and side exit exhausts.