Long-term test: Mercedes-Benz EQA

Thursday, 27 January 2022

It hasn’t attracted a dad-joke name, but the Mercedes-Benz EQA is proving to be every bit a satisfying daily runner so far.

MERCEDES-BENZ EQA 250
Base price: $85,500 (As tested: $93,800)

The longer range of the EQA has seen an unconscious shift in my charging habits. Mainly because I am lazy.

Powertrain and range: Permanent-magnet synchronous electric motor and 66.5 kWh battery, 140kW/375Nm, FWD, 426km range (WLTP)
How far we’ve gone: 791km

15 minutes once or twice a week while at the supermarket has been enough to keep the EQA nicely topped up so far.

Power consumption: 24.8kWh/100km (WLTP claim: 17.7kWh/100km combined)
What have we done lately? Commuted, not charged it at home at all.

The EQA is a handsome and conventional-looking small SUV. Those wheels still give me kerb-induced parking anxiety though...

What we like: Pre-conditioning is still my favourite thing – particularly in this hot weather, great ride quality.
What we don’t like: Not having the charging port in the nose, energy consumption figure is coming down, but is nowhere near the claimed figure…

Mercedes-Benz's latest EV, the small EQA 250 SUV has arrived on New Zealand shores.

Charging is one of the biggest (and most contentious) issues surrounding EVs as their presence on our roads increase, and I have been fascinated to see my habits around charging slowly change as I got used to living with my recent long-term MG ZS EV.

With the ZS I quickly settled into a routine of charging it once a week overnight at home, and then just ‘snacking’ – ie: plugging it into public chargers whenever there was the opportunity, no matter how brief – which was more than enough to see me through the week and allow for range-anxiety free daily motoring, not just commuting.

However, the biggest surprise so far in the switch to a Mercedes-Benz EQA 250 with a larger range is that fact that I have unconsciously abandoned my previous approach to charging I established with the MG.

* Why an EV can make a good road trip great

Having the charging port use the same hole that as ICE version’s fuel filler might save production costs, but it does mean you have to back in to most chargers.

* Long-term test: MG ZS EV

* Mercedes-Benz wagons could be a thing of the past by 2030

The MG had a far more convenient and sensible location for its charging port.

The EQA’s bigger range (426km versus the MG’s 263km) has seen me drop the “charging at home” part of that and exist solely on public chargers for my daily driving. That’s right – I have yet to even consider plugging it in at home.

A large part of this is likely down to the fact that I am, at heart, spectacularly lazy.

If you followed the chronicles of my time with the MG, you will know that I have no easy, or particularly convenient, place to charge an EV at my home, so it requires a conscious effort – and potential inconvenience – to do it. Whereas my local supermarket has a ChargeNet charger in its carpark.

So now, every time I pop down to grab essential supplies (okay, beer and chips), I plug it in for between 15 and 30 minutes (depending on whether I need more than just beer and chips), which is enough to keep it nicely topped up somewhere between 25 and 80 per cent.

In fact, with no thought towards planning (never my strong point anyway) I charged the EQA four times in December, for a total cost of $44.04, essentially making it $11 a week – although it is hard to read too much into this just yet, as December is never a ‘normal’ month in terms commuting…

This is, of course, the most expensive way to charge an EV (and the hardest on the battery), so charging at home is still preferable, but I find it fascinating that it actually hasn’t been necessary for me (yet, at least), and goes to show that you don’t necessarily need a place to charge an EV at your home.

While I had grand plans for a more adventurous road trip over the Christmas/New Year period, these plans predictably fell apart. Still, a trip down-country is inevitable soon, so it will be interesting to see whether my more relaxed approach to charging causes me any drama or not.

While the EQA has been a dream to drive so far, one aspect of it puzzles and frustrates me – namely, its energy consumption. Mercedes claims 16.2kWh/100km for the EQA, but this is based on the old and wildly outdated ADR calculation for the Australian market, while the WLTP figure is a more realistic 17.7kWh/100km.

However, while my average consumption figure is coming down, it is still nowhere ear that, clocking in at 24.8kWh/100km so far.

Now, I will admit a large part of this is due to my driving style (which is even more full-throttle in an EV…), but then it is the same driving style that saw the MG ZS EV easily sit just under its WLTP claim of 18.6kWh/100km.

Two factors seem to be at play here: the fact that using the air conditioning seems to have a far more detrimental impact on the EQA’s consumption than other EVs I have driven (but then it has been extremely hot, and I hate heat, so the air-con is at full-blast all the time recently), plus the fact that there also seems to be a fairly big difference between driving the EQA in its most frugal modes and driving it like a ‘normal’ car.

Dropping the EQA into ‘Eco’ mode, turning off the air-con, using the navigation to both drive the most economical route and use the route-based cruise control to regulate the speed, and the intelligent ‘auto’ setting for the regenerative braking gets results not too far off the WLTP figure, while driving much in the manner of the hyper-miling owner of a 10-year-old Nissan Leaf will easily drop it under.

However, driving like a normal person would drive their normal car on a normal daily basis quickly bumps it up to more than 20kWh/100km on a short trip. On the upside, however, driving it like a total lunatic doesn’t seem to have a particularly tragic effect on consumption in an overall sense, so just go for it, I say…

One less ethereal, more niggling annoyance I have with the EQA however, is the location of its charging port.

While it is in the spot where the ICE GLA would have its fuel filler flap, the issue largely arises from having the MG for so long – the ZS has its charging flap right in the centre of its nose, under the MG logo in the grille.

This is absolutely brilliant for the simple reason that you simply pull into the parking space on front of a charger and the port is always right next to it.

The EQA on the other hand you have to back in, and be aware of which side of the charger you are on, to make sure the cable will reach the port. None of which is really a big hassle, but after the no-brainer ease of MG’s approach, it is an irritation.

Those are the only two irritations I have so far had with the EQA, however, with other aspects of it being utterly fantastic: I still love preconditioning with a deep and abiding passion, the interior quality is superb, and the ride quality is extremely impressive for a small car.

One other thing that I am currently loving too is the automatic setting for the regenerative brakes – pop it in auto and the car will regulate the amount of resistance depending on whether you are going down a hill, following another car, and a number of other factors – it works brilliantly on Auckland’s motorways, but I will touch on this more after I have done more open road distance in the EQA. Stay tuned!