2023 Mercedes-AMG EQE53 review: International first drive

I’m going to hit you with some headline figures first because they’re vaguely ridiculous. If you spec your 2023 Mercedes-AMG EQE53 with the Dynamic Plus package it will produce 505kW and 1000Nm.

Dial in launch control and despite weighing in at more than 2.5 tonnes, you’ll rocket from 0-100km/h in 3.3 seconds once you step off the brake pedal.

And finally, the price. If you decide to purchase an EQE53 when it arrives in Australia later this year, you’ll need to fork over around $200,000. That’s a huge amount of money but, weirdly, it also makes this electric Benz something of a bargain when you compare it with its rivals.

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An AMG without a menacing V8 soundtrack? It’s like Nike with no Swoosh. Top Gun with no Cruise.

Want the same degree of potency and acceleration in a Porsche Taycan? Prepare to hand over $150K more for a Turbo S. And if you measure the EQE against its combustion-powered sibling, the AMG E63 S, the petrol-powered sedan costs around $50K more, is almost a full generation older, and is 50kW/150Nm down.

Frame it this way and the EQE53 is suddenly an intriguing proposition but there are even deeper questions at play, too. Just like its competitors, AMG is starting to embrace electrification but somehow it feels a more seismic shift for the brand from Affalterbach. An AMG without a menacing V8 soundtrack?

It’s like Nike with no Swoosh. Top Gun with no Cruise. So can an electric super sedan deliver the same sense of excitement and character we’ve come to expect from AMG? Let’s find out.

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Pricing and features

The car I’ve been talking about until now is the flagship EQE53 with the Dynamic Plus package – but if that sounds a little too intense for your liking, Mercedes will also offer a ‘regular’ EQE53 with ‘just’ 460kW and 950Nm.

An even more sedate version is available globally, badged EQE43, but it won’t be offered in Australia. As usual, our market demands the richest and most powerful recipe possible.

Exact pricing and spec are yet to be locked in, but if the EQE53 can land around the $200,000 mark as Mercedes is predicting, you’ll certainly be getting a lot of car for your money.

Peel back the skin and you’ll find two electric motors, one for each axle, but the motor at the back features a six-phase design rather than the usual three, which helps with power density and repeatability.

So, unlike some other high-performance EVs, you should be able to do full-bore acceleration runs until you feel sick, rather than when the car starts to wilt.

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Being electric, torque distribution is fully variable and it isn’t only shuffled between the two axles but also side-to-side between individual wheels. As usual there are a host of drive modes to play with but, intriguingly, the modes also dictate how much performance the EQE53 develops.

Switch it to Slippery mode and you’ll only have 50 per cent of the available power and torque to play with. Comfort turns the wick up to 80 per cent, while Sport offers 90, and it’s not until you engage Sport+ that you have the full fruit basket at your disposal.

The suspension comprises air springs with adaptive dampers and the tune is AMG-specific, meaning you score different roll-bars, wheel carriers and stiffer bearings compared with the ‘regular’ EQE range. Speaking of which, non-AMG versions of the EQE are tipped to hit Aussie showrooms around the same time (fourth quarter, 2022).

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As is the EV norm, the EQE53 is monumentally heavy – officially it hits the scales at 2525kg – but thankfully it has equally colossal brakes. As standard, you score 415mm front discs clamped by four-piston calipers but the car we drove at the international launch in France was fitted with optional 440mm carbon-ceramics. Yikes.

The brakes recoup energy, too, through three different stages of resistance and can feed up to 260kW back into the battery.

Standard four-wheel steering, which can turn the rear wheels by up to 3.6 degrees, helps with low-speed manoeuvrability and high-speed stability.

Providing you resist the urge to engage warp drive at every possibility (with so much acceleration on tap, that’s easier said than done), range is rated at a respectable 518km on the WLTP cycle.

As is the EV norm, the EQE53 is monumentally heavy – officially it hits the scales at 2525kg – but thankfully it has equally colossal brakes.

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The 90.6kWh battery can also cope with 170kW DC fast charging, meaning you can add 180km of range in 15 minutes, according to Mercedes.

Worth noting, however, that a Porsche Taycan and Kia EV6/Hyundai Ioniq 5 can be recharged much more quickly due to their 800-volt architectures that can handle charge rates of 270kW and 350kW respectfully.

One final feature worth mentioning? AMG has fitted a unique augmented ‘sound experience’ that can be toggled through various modes and, in its most intrusive setting, it sounds as though you’re operating a podracer from Star Wars. It’s an attempt to fill the acoustic void usually filled by a thumping V8 but as we’ll get to a bit later, it won’t be to everyone’s taste…

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Comfort and space

Inside the EQE53 offers plenty of wow factor. All of the cars at launch featured Merc’s enormous 141cm OLED hyperscreen digital dash (no word yet if it’ll standard or optional in Australia) and the functionality and resolution of the screens is deeply impressive. Just be sure to tuck a microfibre cloth into one of the many storage cubbies; fingerprints are going to be an issue.

Comfortable and supportive sports seats are standard and you also score an AMG-specific steering wheel. The wheel is a tech tour de force in its own right and is festooned with so many touch pads, haptic sliders and dials that it can be a touch daunting at first.

Some of the controls are on the small side, too, so you often find yourself glancing away from the road to ensure you prod the right thing. That bugbear should diminish as familiarisation builds, but it’s not a simple car to operate straight off the bat.

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Better news is that the focus on tech hasn’t come at the expense of the basics. The cabin feels airy and spacious and there’s loads of cabin storage.

The rubber-lined door pockets are cavernous, there’s a massive central storage cubby that offers two cup holders, a wireless charging pad and two USB-C ports, and there’s an even larger compartment below the centre console that’s big enough for bags and houses another two USB-C ports.

Rear seating is equally roomy. Six-foot adults have ample head-, knee- and toe-room and because the transmission tunnel is a minor blip rather than the usual hump, fitting three across the rear bench should be a cinch.

Plenty of equipment back there, too, thanks to twin air vents, a central armrest, heated outboard seats and a further pair of USB-C ports.

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Charging your device isn’t going to be an issue in the EQE. About the only real complaint concerns rear vision. The rear window is quite shallow, so clocking what’s behind you in the rear-view mirror can be a touch tricky.

Because its aero-honed exterior design is so amorphous (it’s very slippery at 0.22Cd but does anyone else see a giant bar of soap?) it can be tricky to place the EQE53 size-wise, so I’ll offer some context. It’s big.

Compared with an E-Class it’s 29mm longer, 54mm wider and 32mm taller but its wheelbase is a whopping 181mm longer. At 3120mm, the EQE53’s wheelbase is actually even longer than an S-Class’s, which is why the cabin feels so roomy. As for the boot? The aggressively tapered rear end means it’s on the small side at 430L.

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On the Road

So how does it drive? Well around town it’s a doddle. The cabin is quiet and comfortable, the control weights are natural and because there’s no delay from the electric powertrain, it’s a breeze to slip into tight gaps in traffic. Four-wheel steer helps it feel surprisingly wieldy, too, despite its sizeable dimensions and there’s even decent ride compliance.

Our test car was rolling on optional 21-inch alloys (20s are standard) but despite their size and low-profile rubber (tyres are specially developed Michelin Pilot Sport EVs that measure 265/35 R21 up front and a whopping 295/30 R21 out back), the ride never felt overly firm or harsh. Gnarly Aussie tarmac will be the true test of ride comfort, so stay tuned, but early signs are good.

Hurl the EQE53 up a tasty section of road and it’s ballistically fast. That sounds incredibly obvious in a car with 505kW/1000Nm on tap, but it’s the way the thrust is doled out that makes it so addictive.

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Flatten the throttle and there’s no delay as you wait for turbos to spool or gears to change; just unrelenting propulsion. It makes the EQE an incredibly potent point-and-shoot machine but there’s genuine talent to exploit from the chassis on corner exit, too.

Traction from the enormous rear Michelins is immense and when you nail the throttle you can actually feel the car’s brain working hard to distribute drive across all four tyres. It’s amazingly complex and in Sport+ mode you can even relish in moments where the EQE53 feels appealingly rear-driven as you rocket out of corners.

It is tricky to understand where the limits are, especially on corner entry. It was raining hard during our drive and on slippery roads it was difficult to know just how much grip you had at the front axle. Most of that was down to the lack of feedback coming through the steering wheel.

Flatten the throttle and there’s no delay as you wait for turbos to spool or gears to change; just unrelenting propulsion.

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Although the steering is accurate enough, and the speed of the variable rack is natural, the wheel feels vague and distant in your hands, which robs your ability to place the car with confidence. Plus, you can never quite escape the thought that you’re hurling about a car that weighs 2.5 tonnes.

The EQE hides its mass well but there’s a sense that if it does let go, there won’t be much hope of getting it back…

Brakes are good, though. Given the high level of recuperation going on, I had feared the pedal would feel strange and be difficult to modulate but AMG’s engineers have kept it wonderfully free of electric corruption. Hit the brakes hard and they feel like a conventional set of performance stoppers, which is high praise for such a complex system.

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Ah yes, the sound. AMG’s ‘sound experience’ is piped through the speakers and the level of volume and intensity increases as you cycle through the drive modes. You can also choose between two sound profiles. ‘Authentic’ is standard but ‘Performance’ is optional and it’s the latter that gives you the full Podracer effect when you accelerate.

Does it sound like an AMG? Not like one we’re used to but it also doesn’t sound bad. It’s actually quite fun to lean into the theatre of the noise and owners will no doubt enjoy showing their friends but it never feels authentic. You get the noise but none of the supporting sensations that are so intrinsic to an engaging performance car soundtrack.

Happily, the system can be switched off altogether if it’s not to your taste.

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VERDICT

So is the EQE53 a proper AMG? That’s a curly one to answer. Measure it by the usual AMG yardsticks of pantomime and panache and you might be a touch disappointed. It lacks the personality, the connection and the fizzy sense of engagement you get from an E63 but it feels wrong to judge the EQE53 this way.

The rules of engagement are changing and on many levels it trounces AMG’s conventional super sedan. It’s faster, more spacious, more comfortable, makes an intriguing noise and won’t only be cheaper to run but it should be significantly cheaper to buy, too.

But it’s how it measures up against its battery-powered rivals that’s arguably more important. At first blush it feels sharper to drive than a Tesla Model S Plaid but not quite as agile or as engaging as a Porsche Taycan or Audi RS e-tron GT.

We feel a comparison coming on…

Mercedes-AMG EQE53 specifications

(with Dynamic Plus package)