Mercedes-Benz G-Class electric review

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High-end off-roader gets an electric variant with a powerful motor for each wheel and a giant battery

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An electric Mercedes G-Class?

Sure, why not. It’s an ambitious idea but Mercedes has an appetite for this sort of thing that its German rivals don’t quite yet seem to have shown. Recently the company set the 24-hour distance record for an EV, AMG’s GT XX prototype travelling at an average of 186mph and charging at 950kW to cover an eventual 3405 miles at Nardò. Not bad for a day’s work. In the EQS, the firm has also hastily produced what amounts to an electric S-Class, while the new CLA is now set to disrupt the junior executive EV class.

Mercedes really does appear to treat electrification with a certain relish, so adapting the most backward-looking product it makes for a fossil-fuel-free future perhaps wasn’t the internal hard sell you would think it was.

Alas, as Mercedes is now finding out, it’s not a risk-free move. Since the ‘G580 with EQ Technology’ went on sale earlier this year, take-up has been about 15% that of the popular ICE G-Class, which is still available with characterful straight-six and V8 engines. Clearly those engines are seen as an integral part of the recipe by most of the client base. The electric G has duly been described by one unnamed company executive, according to newspaper Handelsblatt, as a “complete flop”.

This doesn’t stop it from being a very interesting prospect from a road-testing perspective. It is reasonable to expect that, in time, cars of all stripes will be offered with an electric powertrain, and that will include proper off-roaders with ladder-frame constructions and locking differentials (or at least a simulation of that technology). In this respect the G-Class is a pioneer, being the first mainstream car of its kind to make the jump. A year or two from now, Range Rover and Jeep will have followed suit, but the G-Class will always have been first.

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So now we will get into the detail of this fascinating project, whose ability as a luxury off-roader may well be unfairly coloured by its lacklustre sales. What does an electric future for the famous G-Class look like? Let’s find out.

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DESIGN & STYLING

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Mercedes G580 review 2025 002 rear tracking

In its appearance, no great change. This is certainly a G-Class: there are only minor differences between combustion and electric ones, including some blue body trim.

To improve aerodynamic efficiency, the EQ car gets a slightly raised bonnet, a leading-edge roof spoiler and plastic strips on the A-pillars, plus vents in the rear wheel-arch flares. Modifications to the existing ICE versions are minimal for very obvious reasons.

Underneath, the G580 retains the Graz-built G-Class’s ladder-frame chassis, constructed using 4mm-thick steel. The 116kWh, 12-module battery uses the same cells as in the EQS SUV but is fitted into a specific shape of pack stored in between the chassis rails. It’s not very wide, so the modules are stacked on top of each other, with cooling on either side. To fit it, Mercedes had to remove three cross braces, so the torsion-resistant casing is now an integral part of the frame. The pack also sits lower than is ideal, so with underbody protection paramount for off-road action, a carbon-composite plate nearly three centimetres thick has been bolted beneath it. It alone weighs 57.6kg and is fixed in place by 50 screws.

Ah yes, weight. We should talk about it. At 3140kg the G580 is the heaviest car we have officially road tested, pipping Ford’s similarly ladder-framed F-150 Lightning EV. The distribution is 48:52, meaning the back half alone is heavier than a 911 Carrera S. We have long said that the medieval bridges of Europe should be avoided by SUV owners, but in this case it’s no longer a joke.

Hardly helping matters is the fact that the G580 uses not two electric motors but four, so that each wheel gets its own dedicated source of propulsion. It’s not a lightweight approach, but the packaging is neat and it does negate the need for differentials, giving the car phenomenal driveline dexterity. Tank turns are even on the menu, should you get stuck down a narrow dirt track. The system is Magna’s new ‘eDS Duo’ powertrain.

All UK-market G-Classes get 20in wheels as standard. If you want to fit all-terrain tyres on smaller rims, they will be a dealer-fit option.

INTERIOR

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Mercedes G580 review 2025 009 dash

When it overhauled the G-Class in 2018, Mercedes was careful to safeguard certain traditional features.

The bonnet indicators are a good example. They were nightmarish to homologate but were regarded as indispensable. The push-button door handles are another such element, along with the industrial-sounding clack with which the doors slam shut. It’s a noise that hasn’t been tolerated on any other passenger Mercedes model for 40 years or more, and on this electric version of the G-Class is more incongruous than ever, yet it doesn’t half set the tone. We like it.

It’s a climb up into the G-Class – the sort you only ever get with proper off-road vehicles, to the extent that you’ll actually look down into the cabins of Audi Q7s on the motorway – and you’re greeted by an upright seating position and an upright, letterbox windscreen. There’s less leg room than you might expect, mind, until you remember that the G-Class is only 4.6m long, which is about the same as a mid-sized crossover.

The door mirrors are sculpted for the wind, so smaller than you would find on an Ineos Grenadier or a Land Rover Defender, while the interior mirror view suffers from quite a lot of cable box obstruction. There’s no option of a digital mirror either, as you will find on the Land Rover Defender Octa.

The G580 has Mercedes’ MBUX infotainment system, comprising twin 12.3in screens: a display behind the steering wheel and an infotainment touchscreen, more on which in a moment.

The division of digital interface and physical controls is well managed. There are physical buttons for heating controls beneath the big touchscreen, and they work in a conventional and easy way. The wing mirrors are adjusted via a button on the top of the (heated) door edges, where you will also find window switches and toggles for adjusting the seat.

Perceived quality is generally high and the nature of the materials used is opulent enough to mean you would feel at least a little bit guilty clambering up into the car wearing a sopping-wet Barbour and muddy wellies. Equally, our test car had a pronounced dashboard rattle and the admittedly lovely truffle brown leather was poorly trimmed on one of the passenger seat bolsters.

Those bolsters are substantial, and the seats are otherwise superb, with an unusual degree of lumbar adjustment. Six hours in the saddle is no problem, which isn’t a given in cars with upright driving positions.

The relatively shallow boot, at 555 litres, is down a little on ICE G-Class models owing to a marginally taller floor, but the rear seats fold flat. This, along with the very high ceiling, makes the G-Class as capacious as any other senior SUV.

There’s no frunk, because the space is filled with electric bits, including the sound box for the engine-sound-imitating ‘G-Roar’.

As for that infotainment ecosystem, two 12.3in screens have been updated to run Mercedes’ current MBUX software.It works even better here than in other models, because the climate controls get their own row of rocker switches and because the G-Class retains its touchpad and shortcut buttons. The resolution is excellent, as is the colour rendition, and the menus are simple to navigate.

Apple CarPlay and Android Auto are also neatly integrated, and your phone can be connected wirelessly or via one of three USB-C ports in the front cabin. The digital ecosystem in the G580 is very complete. That it achieves this while feeling unobtrusive is one reason why the car’s cabin is so appealing. Mind you, the Burmester ‘3D’ sound system is crisp enough but does buzz at higher frequencies and didn’t blow us away in general.

Elsewhere, prod the large central dashboard button and the display will shortcut to the car’s off-road gauges, which include an inclinometer, real-time axle articulation and the division of drive between all four wheels.

 

ENGINES & PERFORMANCE

Mercedes G580 review 2025 015 off road

Power is rated at 579bhp and torque at 859lb ft. This makes the G580 only marginally less potent than the V8-engined G63.

The G580 gets its four-wheel drive from four electric motors. Two are centrally housed in the front, the other two at the rear. Each 145bhp unit powers one wheel, but they aren't actually located inside them.

They drive through their own reduction gear, and for off-roading (see the next section), each has a lower-range gear too, selectable from inside the cabin when the car is in neutral.

The 0-62mph time is quoted as 4.7sec, which is very fast, and the top speed at 112mph, which is not. And that gives you an idea of what the G580 is about. It has Tarmac-destroying low-speed accelerative potential.

The throttle tuning is excellent and varies depending on the drive mode (again, we will go into it deeper in the next section).

Braking is smooth too and the pedal feel is consistent. The strength of the regenerative braking is handled by steering-wheel paddles.

Now, the G-Roar. This is the name for Mercedes’ artificial engine noise. It isn't like BMW’s futuristic soundscape and broadly sounds a bit like a toned-down V8 AMG. If you had someone in the car who didn’t know it was electric and they weren’t a petrolhead, they might just think that it was petrol. Which I guess is a compliment to Mercedes’ engineers. You can turn it off too, and after a brief play with it, that’s what we did. 

RIDE & HANDLING

Mercedes G580 review 2025 016 front off road

With a separate chassis and mechanical rather than air springs, the G-Class has always felt a bit like a truck, and now it's so heavy that it threatens to become one. Its maximum payload is only 415kg, and there’s no option of a towbar. The maximum permitted gross weight is 3500kg, and I think would be perilously easy to get there: carrying a family and skiing luggage could be 400kg easily. But with current battery technology, this is where we are.

So with coil springs and adaptive dampers, the G580 feels heavy in terms of ride composure and steering. It's no Range Rover in terms of refinement or the time it takes between you giving instructions via the steering wheel and the wheels beneath you doing anything. Impressively, though, it doesn’t feel three tonnes kind of heavy.

The low-speed ride is where that weight is most felt. The G580 judders over prolonged uneven surfaces, with a shimmy that you feel through your seat and hands, although I think it’s probably more refined than, say, the Ford Ranger Raptor.

There’s a fair degree of wind noise, too, probably exacerbated by minimal drivetrain noise.

Off road

Mercedes' engineers think the electric G-Class is better off road than the ICE ones.

It gets independent front suspension and a solid rear axle like that car, albeit the rear axle is redesigned.

Its wading depth is 850mm, more than ICE G-Classes', and Mercedes says that's on the conservative side. Above that and initially the car is likely to lose traction because it’s buoyant – until it isn’t.

Having four motors give significant advantages over an ICE powertrain. There’s more torque, for a start, and it’s available as soon as the motors start turning. Mercedes says the drivetrain responses are up to 150 times faster than in an ICE car.

The real beauty is that a differential can effectively be locked and unlocked on a whim; power can be not just shared across the wheels but diverted to the only wheel that wants it. Or in the case of the G580’s party tricks, movement can be denied to individual wheels or they can spin backwards while another turns forwards.

You may have seen clips of a G580 spinning in its own length, like a tank turn. Very amusing too, and this G-Turn feature could occasionally be useful. But the car only wants to do it on a flat surface, in case it slides off a slope, while it makes a heck of a racket and digs a big channel into the ground while it’s doing it.

Meanwhile, the G-Steer function can brake an inside rear wheel and overspeed the outside rear simultaneously to reduce the otherwise large (13.6m) turning circle. It’s like a handbrake turn and powerslide meets the fiddle brakes of a trials car all at once. Working at its best when you’ve got a lot of steering lock applied at a little over walking pace, it’s very clever, and could be very useful in forests or driving between gates.

There’s a three-speed off-road cruise control function too (slow, variable or fast, although all are quite slow), which lets you forget the pedals while the electronics find the best traction.

With the G-Steer too, the G580 through one muddy section, including some silly tight turns, more remarkably and easily than I would have thought possible.

All combined, the G580’s hardware and tuning makes for an impressive off-roader. Imagine what it could be like if it were lighter still.

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MPG & RUNNING COSTS

Mercedes G580 review 2025 001 front tracking

The G580 weighs 3209kg in road-ready, optioned form. If you're thinking about that in the context of a zero-local-emissions vehicle, you're thinking too hard. This is still an ostentatious show of wealth, and if you're truly worried about running costs, best look elsewhere.

The WLTP range from its enormous 116kWh battery is 294 miles, and it will officially do 2.0-2.2 miles per kWh.

We've yet to perform much in the way of range testing, but we reckon a bit under than 2mpkWh sounds about right. Even compared with big electric SUVs, such as the Kia EV9, that's relatively poor. But we suspect most G580 owners won’t care.

According to Mercedes, what’s more important is its abilities off road. It can tackle the famous Schökl pass 14 times before running out of battery, whereas the G63 will only be able to do it six times before needing a fill of super-unleaded. One tells oneself whatever one needs to justify it, I suppose.

VERDICT

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Mercedes G580 review 2025 020 front off road

The G580 isn't a rational choice. It’s expensive, it's a bit clattery on the road, there’s a lot of wind noise and, as far as EVs go, it’s among the least efficient. Given its size, it’s not wildly practical either.

You may be able to imagine where this conclusion is going. All of these flaws very much make it a proper G-Class and a very natural progression in the lineage.

'G' has grown from utilitarian to luxury to somewhere now where it sits between retro, ostentatious and very silly, depending on how you spec it. This electric model fits right in.

 

Murray Scullion

Murray Scullion
Title: Digital editor

Murray has been a journalist for more than a decade. During that time he’s written for magazines, newspapers and websites, but he now finds himself as Autocar’s digital editor.

He leads the output of the website and contributes to all other digital aspects, including the social media channels, podcasts and videos. During his time he has reviewed cars ranging from £50 - £500,000, including Austin Allegros and Ferrari 812 Superfasts. He has also interviewed F1 megastars, knows his PCPs from his HPs and has written, researched and experimented with behavioural surplus and driverless technology.

Murray graduated from the University of Derby with a BA in Journalism in 2014 and has previously written for Classic Car Weekly, Modern Classics Magazine, buyacar.co.uk, parkers.co.uk and CAR Magazine, as well as carmagazine.co.uk.

Matt Prior

Matt Prior
Title: Editor-at-large

Matt is Autocar’s lead features writer and presenter, is the main face of Autocar’s YouTube channel, presents the My Week In Cars podcast and has written his weekly column, Tester’s Notes, since 2013.

Matt is an automotive engineer who has been writing and talking about cars since 1997. He joined Autocar in 2005 as deputy road test editor, prior to which he was road test editor and world rally editor for Channel 4’s automotive website, 4Car. 

Into all things engineering and automotive from any era, Matt is as comfortable regularly contributing to sibling titles Move Electric and Classic & Sports Car as he is writing for Autocar. He has a racing licence, and some malfunctioning classic cars and motorbikes.