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The Empire Strikes Back? I instinctively think of one of the parts from the George Lucas Star Wars saga when I stand in front of the Mercedes-Benz Concept EQ in the “wild” for the first time. This is going to be a new world. An E-NWO made in Stuttgart? We will see.
From reach potatoes and the electric lightning strike into our mobility of tomorrow
Mercedes-Benz Concept EQ - a first ride
The first ride in the concept vehicle reveals one thing above all: concept vehicles are visual tools. An outlook. A vision. Seat boxes made from promises. The “Concept EQ” rumbles through the Berlin industrial landscape in a less elegant way.EUREF ”, a campus in the middle of the capital, which is committed to the future. How does he drive? No idea. It doesn't matter either. It's about the visible culture shock. Like a foreign body from “The Fifth Element”, it rolls past the red brick building. Journalists, bloggers, media people from the automotive industry in the passenger seat. And me.
Culture shock visualized
By 2019 at the latest - and TESLA fans and owners of the Californian noble electric vehicle just smile happily - also massively enter the market for alternative drives in Stuttgart. And then no longer sell hybrids, but real e-cars. Designed according to the idea of an Elon Musk, with the know-how from over 100 years of automotive engineering, according to the wishes of premium customers. Electric vehicles will be able to differentiate themselves significantly less than is the case today. Copper-wound electric motors, hidden somewhere near the axis, invisible battery packs stowed in the underbody. And a vehicle shape that has to submit to the dictates of the flowing air. After all, one thing has become clear to Mercedes-Benz: the competence of the electric vehicle starts with the battery and you really have to spend money on it. Mercedes-Benz will produce its own batteries for the electric vehicles, which also sounds like the Californian model. And so it comes as no surprise that corporate boss Dieter Zetsche only recently had laudable words for TESLA:
Tesla has certainly given a positive impulse because they don't say that electromobility is about doing without and muesli, but on the contrary: that's power and enthusiasm. And that's the right way ”
No waiver and entry from “top to bottom” is part of the Stuttgart-based E concept. The first electric car of a new generation will be offered at Mercedes-Benz in the form of an SUV. Electric all-wheel drive, more than 400 hp and a range of 500 kilometers included. The TESLA idea prevails. New techniques are expensive, so you start where you no longer pay attention to the penny. In the luxury segment. But Mercedes-Benz is demonstrating more with the Concept EQ.
Reach potatoes and subtle light messages
While a “black panel front” with a blue radiating grille and a white Mercedes star will probably not go into series production, the way to a series EQC is clear. The dimensions are based on the Mercedes-Benz GLC, one of the SUVs from Stuttgart. Mercedes designer Thomas Sälzle speaks of broad shoulders, a beefy, dynamic greenhouse and a basic shape that more and more dispenses with unnecessary beads and edges. But no, what exactly you will see again in the series - you can't get it out of the Mercedes men yet. The joy of the changes becomes clearer as soon as the looks into the interior. The future trend topic in the industry. Because the character of the cars will be more and more defined by operating concepts and worlds of experience in the interior. When “driving” takes a back seat, when emotions are no longer defined in terms of six and eight-cylinder cylinders - networking and lifetime during “driving autonomy” become important.
2019 - the market launch of the EQ series - When it comes to “assisted driving”, you will be a whole step further than I recently in the Facelift version of the S-Class 2017 could experience. Vera Schmidt (VP Advanced Digital Design) explains the spectacular interior of the Concept EQ. Light won't just be light. Light will carry subtle information. A continuous light band in the interior provides information about the current driving condition. Charge status and similar environmental information can be conveyed in a simple manner. The active driving mode can be visualized. A cockpit bathed in white light with full performance requirements. Up to a throbbing lighting with active charging while driving over inductive charging sections. Of course, the Concept EQ speaks a completely new design language in the interior. Away from the classic cockpit with the defined information islands, towards a variable control and freely definable display areas. OLED technology and capacitive sensor surfaces will change the way we control our car. What will you see in the series until 2019? Probably much less of the futuristic concept of the interior than of the exterior design.
But especially the lively and needs-based visualization of the surrounding data, navigation data from HERE and a “range potato” that not only shows the theoretical range in the classic “area”, but also integrates changes in the landscape, current traffic data and historical consumption data, sounds extremely exciting and useful . The “range potato” should be a useful aid to future electric car drivers. No theory, but simply visualized facts, integrated into astonishingly lively 3D cards from HERE.
Incidentally, Mercedes-Benz wants to build the electric SUV in Bremen, the GLC plant of Stuttgart - and probably also in Sindelfingen - so the processing should then be above the standards that TESLA still offers - after all, a USP for the E -Mobility of the future!
