The Mercedes Vision EQXX is not a concept car as one might think, but an experimental electric vehicle designed to evaluate future technologies. Its strength resides in its 100-kWh battery and, above all, in its aerodynamics pushed to the max.
Thanks to this, the car is expected to travel more than 1,000 kilometers with an overall energy consumption of 10 kWh/100 km. It will be a record in today’s world of electric cars.
But before the first tests, there were only theoretical numbers on a piece of paper. Mercedes has therefore decided to test its model as part of the Mission EQXX, a trip of just over 1000 km on open road between the brand’s Electric Software Hub (ESH) in Sindelfingen (20 minutes away from Stuttgart), Germany, and Cassis, in the south of France (30 minutes away from Marseille).
The car took the road few minutes before sunrise, leaving from Stuttgart before embarking on the motorway at unlimited speed. To play the game, the different drivers have maintained a fairly classic cruising speed, about 140 km/h on Autobahn, in this case. The first “difficulty” comes to the Swiss border and the Gotthard Tunnel, known for its heavy traffic jams and its 5% slope over around 14 km.
Then, the Vision EQXX began its descent towards the north of Italy, where regenerative braking came into action, but that’s not all. With 117 solar cells achieving 20% productivity, the roof of the Vision EQXX powers a 12-volt battery that itself powers auxiliary functions such as the infotainment system or the navigation. According to Mercedes, the solar roof can add 25 km of range during a 1000 km trip by reducing the charge on the propulsion battery.
After 12 hours of driving, including two 15-minute stops to change drivers and check tire pressure, the car arrived in Cassis. The EQXX managed to travel 1000 km on open roads, with cool temperatures, heavy rain and delays due to work and traffic jams. The EQXX had a remaining range of more than 137 km. Even more impressive, the overall consumption of the car was better than expected, with 8.7 kWh/100 km recorded.
Leave a Reply