Mercedes-Benz’s first all-electric SUV spotted accelerating quickly and winter testing

We recently got a rare look at Mercedes-Benz’s first next-gen electric car, the Concept EQ, but the vehicle is only the concept for the production car, which is going to be called the Mercedes-Benz EQC.

Now, new EQC electric prototypes have been spotted testing ahead of the production launch next year.

The German automaker says that its battery pack has a total capacity of over 70 kWh for a range of ‘up to 500 kilometers’ (310 miles). Of course, that’s based on the NEDC standard and the real-world range or EPA-rated range would be expected to be significantly less – around 250 miles.

In terms of range, it should be competitive with the several other all-electric luxury SUVs coming to market in the next few years.

As for power, Mercedes says that the EQC is equipped with two electric motors on the front and rear axles for a total power output of up to 300 kW. The automaker claims that it will be able to accelerate from 0 to 100 km/h (0 to 62 mph) in under five seconds.

Our first glimpse at that acceleration as a prototype of the new electric vehicle was spotted in the wild:

It might be hard to tell from the quick video, but it definitely looked like it had some punch.

Interestingly, another prototype of Mercedes-Benz’s upcoming all-electric vehicle was also recently spotted doing some winter tests recently:

https://youtu.be/qsPM6LVY8eI

The vehicle is expected to hit the market in early 2019.

Electrek’s Take

As we previously discussed, we are pretty excited by the upcoming launch of the EQC. It’s going to be Mercedes-Benz’s first very own electric vehicle. They brought a few things to market in the past, like the electric B-Class, but those vehicles were built to be gas-powered and were later modified to incorporate an electric powertrain, at one point even built by Tesla.

The EQC should give us a much better idea of what Mercedes-Benz can do in the all-electric market and considering the German automaker has a loyal base of customers, it could be a good opportunity to convert a few petrolheads to electric vehicles.