(dramatic music)
- Welcome to the desert in Las Vegas, Nevada.
You think it's always hot in Nevada, but no.
We've got snow on the mountains up here.
I have the Mercedes EQC.
This is the car that I was in Stockholm, Sweden
about four months ago,
and was able to see it come out.
But they wouldn't let us ride in it,
it was a static car, it was there,
we could see it.
Well, today's the day.
So let's go on a ride.
This came all the way from Germany,
first time in the United States.
Apparently, I'm not the first one to ride in it
because I saw a video with Jay Leno in it.
You let Jay Leno ride in it before me?
- Yes.
- So this is Bastian,
and he is one of Mercedes' engineers,
so he's gonna take me on a ride, a co-drive,
so I'm not gonna drive it but I get a ride in it.
By 2022 Mercedes is planning on having
10 different models in the EQ space.
So this mid-sized SUV,
it has five seats total.
This is going to be the first one,
but in the coming years get ready for more
and more electric cars rolling out from Mercedes.
So yeah, let me get my seatbelt on,
let's go for a ride.
(light techno music)
Okay, first two impressions,
one, this is a really, really smooth ride.
And I guess that's what you would expect
from a Mercedes,
is that it's going to be a
smooth, comfortable ride.
If you've ever driven an electric car,
one thing that you notice is regenerative braking
and my wife, it drove her nuts at the beginning,
when she first started driving an electric car.
Because when you let off of the pedal
the car automatically starts to slow down.
And what it's doing is it's charging
the battery back up.
With the Tesla,
it only has two modes of regenerative braking,
low and regenerative braking, that's it.
Just two options.
Well, Mercedes has four options in EQC.
One of 'em is called sailing,
which is essentially no regenerative
braking at all.
It's just, you let off the pedal
and it is just cruising.
Then the next mode is basically just like
a gas powered car.
So if you really are uncomfortable with having
regenerative braking or you wanna get used
to an electric car for a little bit,
you can keep it in that mode,
and when you let off the pedal,
it slows down just like a regular
gas engine would.
But my favorite level of the Mercedes EQC
regenerative braking is called one pedal.
And the reason why it's called one pedal
is because you almost don't have to use your
brake for it because it's such a
strong regenerative braking.
So if you let off abruptly, the car's coming down.
We're at 76% charge and the car's
coming to a stop, check this out.
(light music)
We've stopped.
We just stopped in the road
without using our brakes at all,
just by letting off the pedal.
That's a pretty cool feature,
and if I drove this car that's something
I would definitely play around with.
There's one mode of regenerative braking
that's called auto,
and in this mode it looks at the mapped data,
and looks to see what the elevation is.
It looks to see what traffic is going to be,
if there's going to be stop lights
and different things,
and the regenerative braking will change
based off of the situation that it's in.
For example, on a highway like this
where I'm going 50 miles an hour,
when I let off I'm probably gonna want
it to sail more.
But rather than just putting in sail mode,
it will just coast for you,
and then when it knows that there's a car
in front of you,
or you're gonna be coming to a stop sign,
or the speed limit's gonna be going down,
it can change down to a different
regenerative braking mode and help
slow you down and charge the battery.
So, it's kind of one where it takes the
thought out of it,
and you let the computer do the work,
you let the car do the work,
and help you have the most
comfortable ride possible.
Alright, what do we do if we wanna
go fast in this thing?
- Um, then we go into the sport modes,
the sport program.
- Okay, sport mode.
Zero to 60, ready for this?
Okay, that's good.
That's an electric car right there.
There's the power.
That was a good zero to 60.
It feels a lot like our Tesla 100D.
Not the P100D, that one's like 2.9 seconds.
But our 100D is about 4.7, 4.8 seconds.
The acceleration felt very close to that.
If you're somebody that has a gas powered car,
and you're like,
oh, I don't wanna drive an electric car,
one thing you get from an electric car
that you don't get from a gas powered car
is, right now, we're going around 40,
and say you need to pass somebody,
if you step on it even when you're
going this fast,
- [Bastian] Pass 'em.
- Yeah, you have that instant power that just
kicks in and you're going quick.
In some ways I like that kick better than even
the like the starting from zero,
and it's also most helpful when you're
driving through traffic.
As far as charging it in the United States,
there's no Mercedes super-charging network,
kinda like Tesla has a super-charging network.
But you can use most charging adapters
that are all across the U.S. already,
that, you know, Nissan's using, Chevy's using,
all these companies are using to charge
their electric vehicles.
The Mercedes can hook up to that network.
We've talked about how it rides,
rides really nice.
We talked about how you charge the car.
They're driving this today giving media rides
here in Las Vegas in this beautiful
red rock area.
What does the range look like on this vehicle?
- We made a road trip in California
before Christmas and we had a range
from 228 miles and a little bit miles
left in the range,
so it would be 230, 240 maybe.
- Which is plenty for getting around for a few
days around town before you need to recharge it.
So there you go,
there's the first ride in the Mercedes EQC.
I love seeing more electric cars coming
out on the market,
and I'm excited to see what Mercedes does
over the next three or four years.
This one in a few months,
hopefully I get a ride in it once it's
full on production when it comes out.
But let me know your thoughts.
If you're somebody that's had Mercedes cars
for a very long time,
and you love your gas powered car,
maybe you're a little skeptical
to go to electric.
Give it a chance, go on a ride,
drive it a little bit,
then make your opinion and see what you think.
Because I do feel like electric is the future
and it's not just a niche thing anymore.
Now company's like Mercedes are coming
out with multiple cars over the next few years.
I think you're really gonna enjoy it so,
anyway, thanks for watching.
(light music)