The Least Likely Candidate for an Eco Makeover? Mercedes’ Brutalist SUV
You may or may not have played your own version of a motorway-driving game called Guess Who’s Driving. Can you accurately profile the driver in front purely from the car brand and model, visible paraphernalia and observable driving habits?
It requires a rudimentary understanding of car branding, socioeconomic behaviours and English social stereotypes, so it’s a step-up from I spy. On a good day, though, it can be performed with astonishing accuracy.
That black Audi A5 with S-line trim and blacked-out windows that keeps changing lanes without indicating? An easy red herring to get started. Not a drug dealer or a League One footballer, but a harassed dad of two in his early forties, holding on to some hazy memory of youthful rebelliousness.
The burgundy mark 3 Mazda MX-5 sitting happily in the slow lane? Harder to be certain, but the smart money would be on a bird-like woman in her early fifties, most likely a retired primary head teacher, on her way to a rental in the Lake District.
In order to verify each round, you are required to pass alongside your target at matching speeds, while craning your eyes sideways and away from the road for several seconds in order to take in as much detail as possible. So, by way of a disclaimer, this game is not risk-free.
Years of playing has amassed a large body of anthropological data on just how often we neatly fall into somewhat predictable automotive tribes.
There is one car, though, that has proven consistently resistant to such crude stereotyping. A car so bonkers, so expensive, so impractical and so practical that its customers are impossible to put in a box. Tech entrepreneur, YouTuber, weapons dealer, music producer, recently divorced hedge-fund manager turned doomsday prepper — it’s simply too difficult to find any common ground, other than their income.
The game just got harder still with the release of an electric version.
This must be the most incongruous collision of worlds ever seen on public roads. A 45-year-old gas-guzzling brutalist SUV with looks straight out of World At War, meets state-of-the-art electric tech featuring four motors, eight gear-boxes and a host of gizmos that might just make this the most capable Geländewagen yet.
Mercedes is calling it, snappily, the G 580with EQ Technology. The kind of name that can only be reached when the sign-off date is fast approaching and no one can face even one more meeting.
This electric G, as we might choose to call it instead, is certainly no rush job — Mercedes has taken this project incredibly seriously, and there is thought to be an electric “baby G” on its way, too.
It’s not easy to tell it apart from its petrol-loving sibling, but there are a few aesthetic changes. A raised bonnet for improved aero-dynamics and pedestrian protection — though good luck to anyone who needs it. Redesigned wheels and arches also incorporate blue brake calipers, a colour theme that runs inside, where blue seams presumably ram home the electric message for anyone who hasn’t cottoned on yet.
The new black panel grille is the most obvious change at the front, while, at the rear, that wonderful spare-wheel cover now features a design box containing all your charging cables.
The range is 285 miles or thereabouts, with Mercedes suggesting that, on one charge, it can tackle Mount Schöckl in Austria 13 times, which, combined, would be the height of Mount Everest. Make of that what you will.
On those four motors we mentioned, there’s one for each wheel, producing 145hp each fora 580hp total (hence one part of the name).
That translates to 4.7 seconds to reach 62mph, and a top speed of 112mph for a car that weighs just north of three tonnes. Heavy, fast and uncompromising, in an “I will hunt you down eventually” kind of way.
Those indestructible military vibes continue with the battery pack, which is encased in a torsion shell with heavy under-armour to protect it from off-road damage.
And it’s off-road that this car would like to call home. With its traditional ladder frame, independent suspension at the front and a new rigid axle at the rear, it’s very possibly a better off-roader than the already brilliant petrol G, largely thanks to that extra torque. It can still take on 45° slopes and drive along at 35° angles, while its wading depth of 850mm is an improvement of 150mm, which could make all the difference in a flash flood in Mayfair.
Its G-Turn feature is a show-stopper. Basically, the car can spin 360° like a tank with no forward movement, while G-Steering provides similarly tight control in dicey conditions.
Of course, there’s no actual engine and, for many G-advocates, a big part of the G’s appeal is the guttural throb of its four-litre V8. By way of compensation, Mercedes brings you G-Roar, an artificial version played out in the cabin. A cabin that, again, is perfectly pitched as a luxury haven in a mad, mad world.
The electric G is both authentically nuts and at the same time, deadly serious. That it’s thriving instead of being phased out is surely a win for oddballs everywhere. It might just be the most desirable electric off-roader in the world. But if it’s your turn to play Guess Who’s Driving, give this car a very wide berth.
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