This is the Mercedes-Benz Vision EQXX, and it’s the result of a massive technology project to improve the company’s electric vehicles. It just so happens that the result of the project is a real car that drives and conforms to safety and road regulations. Is it a production car? No, it’s not going on sale ever, but Mercedes says much of what it learned in putting the Vision EQXX together will find its way into production electric cars one day. To prove the technology, Mercedes is even going to attempt a 621-mile road trip across Europe with the Vision EQXX soon.
There’s a mountain of information and tech to dive into, but we’ll start with a brief overview to explain why the Vision EQXX is special and what Mercedes’ work has resulted in from a big-picture perspective.
The goal was to build an electric car with a range greater than 1,000 kilometers, and Mercedes has done exactly that. For us Americans, that’s just over 620 miles. Mercedes engineers got there by going the efficiency route, not by supersizing the battery, which is the most impressive aspect of the Vision EQXX. As it stands, the EQXX has an astounding efficiency figure of 6 miles per kWh. That’s significantly better than even the most efficient EVs on the market today, Tesla included. With that information in mind, let’s get into how Mercedes engineered an EV that is so efficient.
We’ll start with the battery, since that’s the heart of what an electric car is. Mercedes says it worked with the Formula One team at Mercedes-AMG High Performance Powertrains to put together a super-high-density battery pack. The pack itself is “just under 100 kWh” of usable energy, but it can be put into a compact car like the EQXX. It has the potential energy of the EQS, but the pack itself has 50% less volume and is 30% lighter than that in the EQS. Mercedes attributes the improvements to progress in the chemistry — we will reportedly see a battery using this new chemistry in…