Mercedes EQB 300 review: Plus points for an electric seven-seater SUV
Mercedes has produced the EQB version of the GLB and, as the ‘EQ’ designation is Mercedes’ way of telling you it is an electrified model
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MERCEDES EQB 300 |
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★★★☆☆ |
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from €65,660 - €67,492 as tested |
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168 kW which in turn translates into a very useable 228 bhp |
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419km |
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pretty comprehensive, even in standard trim |
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dowdy looks hide a practical family-oriented beast |
In this gig, cars come and go. Some live long in the memory and are spoken of in hushed, respectful, tones in a quiet pub on a dark night when there’s nothing else on the agenda to waffle about. Others are dismissed with the shake of a weary head.
It is, of course, true to say that there are very few genuinely bad cars made anywhere these days, but there are plenty of them that for one reason or another are dismissed as ‘bad’ because they don’t fit any definition of ‘good’ as determined by the speakers’ own criteria.
It might be that someone doesn’t like the look of a particular car, or think it doesn’t go fast enough or – worse – they reckon it has the handling abilities of an armadillo.
CLIMATE & SUSTAINABILITY HUB
Indeed a lot of the like/dislike arguments are completely subjective and bear no relationship to whether the beast being discussed actually is any good or not.
So it is with motoring critics, who are generally a bunch of people who find it hard to agree on the number of people it takes to make up a set of twins. Everyone has an opinion, but that doesn’t mean you cannot disagree with them.
So, when a motoring hack tells you that any given motor is a steaming pile of effluent, it does not, you understand, actually mean that figuratively. It just means that, in their opinion, it should be flushed, not driven.
Of course, as such a critic, you live and die by such opinions; some people will readily agree, while others – usually the poor suckers who are trying vainly to sell them to the buying public – disagree vehemently and rightly so, especially as their livelihood depends on shifting large numbers of them off their forecourt.
Unfortunately for you, dear reader, you have to decipher – reading between the lines, if you will – what a reviewer means when he says something along the lines of: “this is a nice car, but it’s missing that bit of the magic usually expected from the brand.” Usually, this means the reviewer thinks it is the aforementioned heap of crap.
In this case, the aforementioned reviewer was me and in the not too distant past, the ‘missing a bit of magic’ line was used to describe the Mercedes GLB, a new seven-seater SUV family car from the German giant.
Regular readers will have had their antennae immediately on high alert and ascertained this was not a car we here at Examiner Motoring loved. And we didn’t like it for good reason, or reasons.
We didn’t like it because we deemed it to be ugly and also because it was a front-wheel driver – something of an oddity for a Merc – and thus had the handling chops of the aforementioned and unfortunate armadillo.
It’s a big-ish car, but Mercedes makes plenty of them which are good-looking and handle like a dream. This one did neither.
In any event, our dislike of the car is irrelevant, largely because people will make their own minds up anyway.
In the case of the GLB, Mercedes sold 265 of them last year (when we first saw and drove the car) and to date this year, they’ve found homes for 106, so it’s not exactly the most unpopular car on the market here.
But now Mercedes has produced the EQB version of the GLB and, as the ‘EQ’ designation is Mercedes’ way of telling you it is an electrified model, what we now have is a fully electric version of the GLB and, in truth, we weren’t mad about it either.
The look of the car is still as dull as ditchwater and although the tester was a 4MATIC 4WD machine which lessened the handling failings of the GLB, there was little excitement about the drive and you really did wonder why they’d bothered in the first place.
Well, the reason they bothered is that they’ve found something of a new niche here.
The thing is that if you want an electric car with more than five seats, your options are pretty limited. You could have a Tesla Model X, which costs a bomb, or else you are reduced to van-based options.
The choices there include the Nissan e-NV200 or Mercedes’ own EQV, which is really only suitable as a shuttle bus for hotels or golf clubs or that sort of thing. And in any event, the van-derived car option is not one many people will choose, largely because it is a van with a lot of seats.
The EQB therefore will strike a chord with those who have large families and even those with large children. The thing is with a lot of seven-seaters that with most of them the two rear-most seats are really only suitable for small children.
With the EQB, as the middle row of seats slides fore and aft, you can actually accommodate large children or, at a push, small adults.
And, when the seats are stowed, there is a huge cargo area and this only adds to the can-do factor which clearly applies to this car.
So the thing is actually quite practical and the interior too is pretty much the same as the GLB and includes Mercedes’ impressive MBUX infotainment system and the standard kit includes stuff like a reversing camera, ambient lighting and something which is called ‘acoustic ambient protection’ which seems a bit strange as this is electric after all and should be pretty noiseless.
But the overall vibe here is one of quality and that’s only what you’d expect from a Mercedes.
Sadly, though, the exterior look – already clunky in our view – is not improved by the blanked-off grille which, even with its three-pointed star emblem prominent, is terrible looking.
On the power front, the 66.5 kWh lithium-ion battery and the one-on-each-axle electric motors produce a total of 168 kW which in turn translates into a very useable 228 bhp and 390 Nm of torque, a top speed of 160 km/h and a 0-100 km/h time of eight seconds. You have to remember, however, that this is a big, heavy car, so it never really feels really quick.
The range is 419 km, which makes it very workable for a majority of users or potential owners without having to resort to the vagaries of the Irish charging network, provided you have home charging facilities.
On the whole, the EQB is something for those who like smooth and relaxed driving. If you like hot-sauce motoring, this will not suit, although the security of the 4x4 system does mean the handing is better than might be and a lot better than the GLB in slippy conditions.
It might not be something that lit our fuse, either in performance or good looks, but there is a lot here for some people. The fact is, especially if you are intent on having an electric family car, there’s not a lot comparable on offer on the market right now at the same price point. From that viewpoint alone, it boasts plenty of plus points.
It might not be a car that will ever be spoken of in admiring, hushed tones in a pub on a winter evening, but it will have its fans, even though we don’t count among their number.
