2021 Mercedes-Benz EQC400 Sport long-term review: Around town
For our second instalment of the EQC long termer, we spend time around town looking at the way an electric SUV handles the city grind. Aussies love this segment, so the size is no barrier to purchase. Trent Nikolic finds out whether the EQC is tailored to our local urban road network.
- Cricket commentator Harsha Bhogle’s brave on-air
- attempt to eat a Naga chilli while
- co-commentator Kerry O’Keefe sniggles with glee
- Cars with no soul or substance
- Spineless NSW politicians
- indicators that play greensleeves
Introduction
First a quick glance back at the important specifications. Our 2021 Mercedes-Benz EQC400 Sport starts from $141,300 before on-road costs and has no optional equipment on top of that price. Black AMG leather trim, metallic paint, and the 20-inch alloy wheels are all standard.
EQC has a pair of 150kW electric motors, with outputs of 300kW and 760Nm. The 0-100km/h sprint takes just 5.1 seconds and there’s an 80kWh battery pack. Claimed range is 417km on the WLTP test cycle.
Concentrating on around town work, removes one potential roadblock with electric cars – range. In theory, if you’re running from home to work and back, and carrying out general running around, you should be fine either with the claimed range of the EQC400, or with the proximity to charging infrastructure.
In fact, we find that from Monday to Friday, with the average 20km commute each way, you don’t even need to think about charging the EQC at all. Sure, if you travel further, or if you have to take a longer run somewhere during the week, you will. Plenty of city buyers don’t though, and for them, the claimed range is more than enough.
Quickly on that note, the EQC claims around the 430km mark. In town, on and off the brakes, we’ve snuck close to 400km out of a charge, so the range is real-world realistic. Further, and as you all know, an electric car is most efficient in town, where you’re on and off the brakes, starting and stopping, and not just rolling along the freeway at 110km/h for hours on end. As stated above though, a real-world range between 350km and 400km is handy.
| Key details | 2021 Mercedes-Benz EQC400 Sport |
| Price (MSRP) | $141,300 plus on-road costs |
| Colour of test car | Salenite Grey Metallic |
| Options | None |
| Price as tested | $141,300 plus on-road costs |
| Rivals | Audi E-Tron | Porsche Taycan | Jaguar I-Pace |
Now to the more important fact around town specifically. Size. Aussies love medium and large SUVs, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t getting to the size where they are a little too big for clogged urban streets. The EQC weighs 2500kg, but it doesn’t actually feel especially heavy – more on that in a minute.
As we noted in a review a while back, the EQC is 103mm longer than a GLC43, despite the fact that the EQC looks and feels like a medium SUV when you stand next to it. It’s 16mm lower, but the width and wheelbase are the same.
On the ride height, which ensures the EQC really does have street presence, there’s one minor annoyance we noticed almost straight away around town. It’s due largely to the nose of the EQC being as low to the ground as it is. Despite being an ‘SUV’.
The plastic air foils that sit ahead of the front tyres, are really quite low to the ground. As such, they constantly scrape – on just about everything. Now, you’re not damaging an expensive component and that needs to be noted, and we didn’t need to ring Mercedes-Benz begging for forgiveness for damaging an expensive front bar or metal component, but the scraping sound is like nails on a chalkboard.
It happens over speed humps, in shopping centre carparks, coming in and out of driveways, I even noticed it once when I slowed right down to crawl through a dip in a road surface. It’s a horrible sound and it makes you feel like you’re damaging the EQC, even though you’re not. I realise they need to be there – probably for aero efficiency – but be aware that you’ll hear a noise more often than not.
We had all the same problems charging the EQC around town as we’ve had with every other electric vehicle we test. Chargers that are damaged, chargers that don’t work, chargers that have been decommissioned or not maintained, cars sitting on chargers for hours on end, and non-electric cars parked in charging bays.
It’s why we always say that owners of electric vehicles need to be able to charge at home or work at the moment. Until the public network improves, it’s the safest bet.
| 2021 Mercedes-Benz EQC400 Sport | |
| Seats | Five |
| Boot volume | 500L / 1460L |
| Length | 4774mm |
| Width | 2096mm |
| Height | 1622mm |
| Wheelbase | 2873mm |
The claimed electricity use sits around the 21.5kWh/100km mark and you can get close to that purely around town. We saw live readings between 23-26kWh/100km depending on the driving conditions and whether the AC was running for example. Even at 26kWh consumptions rates, that’s a real-world range of 307km.
Cabin practicality is an EQC strong point, and there are no surprises there. Family buyers will find spacious accommodation for four adults, with even the fifth seat useful around town. Headroom can be tight if occupants are super tall, but that’s the payoff for the sloping roofline, which is attractive to look at.
Second row occupants get vents, USB-C ports, and there are also ISOFIX points for baby seats. The fold down armrest has a small storage bin and cupholders. It’s pretty comfortable back there.
The boot, which expands from 500L out to 1460L when needed, is excellent in terms of carrying everything the average buyer will need to carry day-to-day. It’s set at a practical load height, too, so loading and unloading sports gear, shopping and the like, will be easy for drivers of all heights.
The front part of the cabin is also comfortable, but we’ll take a closer look at that in another update. We’d love to see the transmission tunnel disappear though. It takes up valuable space, and there’s no need for one given the lack of mechanical componentry that would normally be there. Removing it, would really change the sense of space inside the cabin.
It’s easy to get into a comfortable position for driving, and as we’ve noted before, the EQC feels very much like any other premium Mercedes-Benz vehicle from behind the wheel. We’ll look at the massive twin screens in another update, too, but they couldn’t be much easier to interact with and understand, and they bring a high-tech feel to the driving experience.
That feeling of luxury is a big part of why the EQC is such a lovely thing to drive around town. It’s quiet, insulated, the audio system is excellent and delivers a concert-like experience if you want to crank the volume, and you always feel as if you’re floating over the road in a limousine.
Rear visibility isn’t quite as expansive as a regular GLC, but it’s still excellent and manoeuvring the EQC is never a challenge, even in tighter confines. Once you’re set up in the driver’s seat, forward visibility is excellent. You’d expect the EQC to spend plenty of time
| Key details | 2021 Mercedes-Benz EQC400 Sport |
| Engine | Two 150kW asynchronous electric motors |
| Power | 300kW |
| Torque | 760Nm |
| Drive type | All-wheel drive |
| Transmission | Single-speed direct drive |
| Battery pack | 80kWh |
| Power to weight ratio | 120kW/t |
| Weight (tare) | 2500kg |
| Turning circle | 11.8m |
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