Published:
26 November 2021Our EQA test car’s 20in wheels and Pirelli P Zero Elect tyres worked better to create lateral grip than they did traction or outright stopping power.
The car feels softer sprung, heavier, higher rising and more mobile on its springs than most compact electric vehicles. It doesn’t seek to engage as a Tesla or Polestar might and it is a slightly reluctant participant when you seek to hustle it along a winding road with any prevailing briskness, but it copes. Subtle and effective traction and stability controls keep it true to its course, while eventually contained lateral body control ensures it stays stable under cornering load, and secure in outright terms.
The adaptive dampers of our test car seemed to make little difference to that cornering behaviour, which was altered very little as you cycled through the car’s driving modes. Vertical body control is slightly better reined in in the sportier settings, but it is never at all sophisticated. The EQA tends to shuffle its weight across its axles a lot when the surface under its wheels is uneven. It heaves and pitches without much provocation over rising and falling topography, and although it doesn’t quite threaten to run out of suspension travel by doing so as some EVs have, it doesn’t inspire much confidence, either.
Ride comfort and isolation
Mercedes claims to have paid particular attention to noise insulation and cabin sealing during the development of this car, in order to boost its refinement. It certainly seems a fairly quiet-riding car at motorway speeds, although it proved only broadly as quiet as a Q4 E-tron 40 and recorded cabin noise measurements within one decibel of the Audi’s across the speed range.
