Driving off in the Mercedes-Benz Vision EQXX was a little more nerve-racking than I expected. It's not hard to drive or see out of the streamliner, but it is the only one in existence. Mercedes wouldn't tell us the exact budget of the program, but I'm pretty sure it's somewhere between three and four Pur Sports.
In order to build an electric vehicle capable of at least 622 miles on a single charge, the EQXX was built to an engineering brief. It was road-legal in April of this year, less than two years after the project was given the green light.
They followed that up with a longer drive that took them from Germany to the UK, where Nyck de Vries used the remaining charge to drive some hot laps.
There are no plans for a low volume production run and there are no plans for high prices. The Vision EQXX is a concept car that comes to life but is more fully realized than any other concept I've seen.
AdvertisementArs was allowed to drive it despite the EV's low drag.
The shape of the Vision EQXX is more aerodynamic than you might think. More than half of the motor's work is against air resistance. The car is about a foot shorter than the production version of the car. The Vision EQXX's long nose and tail makes it a small car at 110.2 inches.
A narrow 73.6-inch (1,870-mm) width and low 53.1-inch (1,343-mm) roofline give the car a rather small frontal area.
It might remind you of the slippery customer from the nose up. The rear doors don't open and the door handles don't flush to the doors, but one of the few that knows is that it's a concept.
The side view mirrors are large enough to fit on a racing car but not large enough to fit on a license plate. There is no rear window. The car's 12 V battery is powered by a 300 w solar array that feeds into the car's traction battery. Since the priceless one-off will never be left parked outside for very long, Mercedes didn't bother adding the extra gubbins that would allow the panel to trickle- charge the traction battery.
It's only like that from the rear wheels. When the car is parked, the lower part of the tail extends into the bodywork.
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