Mercedes-Benz’s electric car line-up continues to grow with the debut of the Mercedes EQB at the 2021 Munich motor show ahead of a planned start to UK sales before the end of the year.
Set to rival the Audi Q4 E-tron, the EQB is based on the Mercedes GLB, alongside which it is produced at Mercedes-Benz’s plant in Kecskemet, Hungary for the UK market. Production will get underway later this month.
Munich motor show 2021: all the new cars and updates
The first variants to go on sale in Europe will be the four-wheel-drive EQB 300 4Matic, with 225bhp and 288lb ft, and the range-topping EQB 350, which bumps outputs up to 288bhp and 384lb ft for a 0-62mph time of 6.2 seconds – 1.8 seconds quicker than the entry car. Top speed for each is pegged at 99mph.
Each uses a a 66kWh lithium ion battery, produced by Mercedes-Benz sibling company Deutsche Accumotive, housed underneath the rear seat.
It can be charged at up to 11kW on an AC system and at up to 100kW on a DC set-up, and provides the compact SUV with a WLTP-certified range of 260 miles. As it showed the EQB in Europe for the first time, Mercedes confirmed a "particularly long range version" is on the horizon, though gave no details as to the size of its battery.
Also set to be added to the lin-up is the front-wheel-drive EQB 250. It's not expected to reach UK showrooms until 2022, but should represent a substantial cost saving over the two launch-spec cars.
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I don't get what people are getting annoyed about using an existing platform to get an electric version out. I am sure it isn't the easiest option, but making a whole new platform for small sales for the first gen version doesn't make sense. The second gen will probably be completely new, with electric or plugin hybrid only. Doing it this way helps product life cycles
Not sure about the design...the front look, which has several curves and rounded edges, seems incongruent with the rest of the body, which is more squarish...feels like they forgot about designing it until the last minute, so they only had the time to copy the look from the EQS and paste it onto the EQB.
Actually I'm unsure of the Mercedes design direction in general...the EQS is also a disappointment following the decent concept version, and the new S is unremarkable too imo. At least they haven't removed the three-pointed star from the bonnet of the S-Class...yet.