DRIVER’S SIDE: 2024 Mercedes EQE AMG has big-time performance

Everything about my tester this week was big: big price tag, big performance, big touchscreen and big expectations. This week I got behind the wheel of the 2024 Mercedes-Benz EQE AMG SUV.

That’s a lot of alphabet soup in the name, but for those who aren’t aware this is an all-electric SUV with the AMG performance package. This means it has big performance — to the tune of 617 horsepower and 701 pound-feet of torque. Yikes!

Almost as shockingly big was the price tag, coming at just under $125,000. Double yikes!

So you can see why I had big expectations for this all-electric SUV. Afterall, AMG almost always translates to so much fun (note I said almost).

Don’t get me wrong, the output of this high-performance motor does not disappoint. All those horses are there. All the torque is there. But being an EV, the more you get into the accelerator and the more you enjoy that which makes this a marvelous SUV, the more the range drops.

It’s almost ironic. The more you floor it and enjoy the sheer performance, the more range you lose and that range anxiety that comes with most EVs creeps in.

The AMG edition of this impressive SUV has a range of 235 miles. That seems adequate, again until you start enjoying yourself. Then that range seems to diminish quickly. I did manage to drive the EQE to a car show that was about 60 miles away.

The mostly highway trip saw me have to keep my speed and acceleration to within the confounds of the speed limit. That is a challenge all by itself as the performance of the EQE is so smooth and controlled you can hit high MPHs rather quickly and easily.

As I was heading home from the car show, the range anxiety was already creeping in, somewhat unfairly as I still had what would be considered the equivalent to a “half tank” left for my trip. I made it home without incident, although on this very hot day, I did turn the air conditioning to conserve the power usage. That’s frustrating.

On looks, the EQE and that noticeable AMG logo garnered looks. The double takes when I approached or passed vehicles made me realize this was a special vehicle.

With Mercedes-Benz, you know what you’re going to get. The interior was as expected with high-quality touchpoints an elegant cabin and comfortable seats.

An expansive touchscreen spans the entire dashboard in one elongated piece. It’s both overpowering and masterful. I’ve never seen a setup like that. It was driver-focused and relatively easy to use. Mercedes calls it a hyperscreen and that name seems appropriate for this futuristic screen.

Other cool options available include a biometric fingerprint scanner (that you can start the vehicle with when it’s set up), illuminated door sills with the AMG logo emblazoned. And 64-color ambient lighting. No feature was left ignored, as it should with a vehicle with a six-figure price tag.

Nappa leather seats, carbon fiber trim and a Burmester 3D Surround System completed this wonderful interior.

As comfortable as the cabin for even rear passengers is, the cargo area falls short. There’s only 14 cubic feet of space behind the second row. Clearly Mercedes devoted more of the cabin to passenger comfort than usefulness. I can’t fault them for that. Plus if they added more cargo room, that would’ve meant more weight added and thus worse range. No thanks.

Charging the EQE and dealing with range anxiety is really the biggest criticism. If our infrastructure was better for easier fast charging it would be less of an issue.

I live in an apartment in a highly-populated area so I don’t have access to home charging. There was not one single public fast-charging unit within 15 miles of where I live. And even if there was the DC fast charging is time a little more than half an hour to recharge from 10 percent battery capacity to around 80 percent. Imagine filling up your gas tank and waiting there for more than 30 minutes.

Obviously if you spend $125,000 on this type of vehicle, you’d have a home charging system where a Level 2 home wall unit it would still take more than nine hours for a full charge.

I’m never one to drag EV technology or to harp on range anxiety, but in the case of this big, bad AMG electric SUV it was omnipresent. Improve the grid and improve the battery technology to provide more range and the 2024 Mercedes-Benz EQE AMG would’ve met all my big expectations.

Jimmy Dinsmore is a freelance automotive journalist. Email him at jimmydinsmore73@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter @driversside.