Called EVA2 by Mercedes-Benz but known as the MEA (Modular Electric Architecture) outside of the carmaker, the skateboard platform will spawn at least three EQ models in the next year and a half, with the first to arrive being the EQE later this year. Set to go official in September, the 2022 Mercedes-Benz EQE is currently still being tested all around the world, with a pre-production prototype having been spotted this week doing rounds on the Nurburgring Nordschleife.
While it won’t be a slow car by any means in its standard, non-AMG guise, people don’t normally buy an electric sedan to go track carving, so seeing the EQE dance over the 154 corners of the Green Hell feels a bit surreal.
Compared to its bigger brother, the Mercedes-Benz EQE is similar-looking but has slightly different proportions, partly because of its shorter length but mostly because it will be a notchback sedan and not feature a liftback design like the EQS.
Thanks to an almost identical wheelbase and MEA platform underpinnings, it is expected that it will feature similar battery size options, so we should be looking at least three different versions of the model after it goes on sale.
The middle-ground option, which will probably be the best sold, will feature a 90-kWh lithium-ion battery developed and built in-house by Mercedes-Benz, which should give it a WLTP range of almost 700 km (435 miles).
An entry-level version with a 66.5 kWh battery should also be on the menu, while AMG is expected to be working on a performance version later in the model’s cycle as well.
Available either in rear-wheel-drive guise when powered by a single electric motor or AWD thanks to a dual-motor setup, the EQE will try to steal quite a lot of sales from the Tesla Model 3, with which it will be compared the most, despite a slightly larger size and price tag.
