• Plenty of space for four
• But a surprising squeeze for five
• Vast boot accessed by tailgate

How much space is there?

The Mercedes EQS is over 5.2m long, so there is plenty of space for four passengers, with generous legroom in the rear as you’d expect from this class of car. Technically speaking it will seat five people, but the middle rear seat is a significant downgrade over the two either side of it and probably best left for use in unavoidable situations only.

Getting in and out is easy, as long as you have enough space to open the large doors wide enough and don’t mind dropping down into the relatively low-slung interior.

23

Boot space and storage

Unlike the S-Class, which is a traditional saloon with a boot separate from the cabin, the EQS is a giant hatchback. This makes accessing the vast 610 litres of seats-up luggage space a breeze. Not only is that a useful 60 litres more than the S-Class’s 550-litre max, you can expand the EQS’s carrying capacity to 1,710 litres by folding down the rear seats.

We can’t imagine many people doing a tip run in one of these, but should the need arise it is at least more practically possible, even if the result isn’t quite a flat load floor. The rear seat back splits, so you can still accommodate rear passengers, too, and the tailgate is electrically operated as standard – though we’d expect nothing less from a car in this class.

23

You’re unlikely to be wanting for cabin storage either, as there are useful cubbies, door bins and bottle holders throughout. A notable one is the open area under the centre console, which is perhaps also supposed to lend and a lightweight airiness to the interior of this 2.5-tonne EV.

Is it easy to park?

Well, aside from the general issue of being over 5.2m long – and over 2.1m wide from mirror tip to mirror tip – parking shouldn’t be too difficult thanks to the array of cameras and sensors Mercedes sensibly provides you with. Oddly, not all of the camera angles are particularly helpful, but we quickly got used to this.

What’s more, rear-wheel steering (RWS) allows this large car to make much tighter turns than would otherwise be possible. All but the entry-level variant have a mighty 10 degrees of rear swivel – the basic version has 2.5 degrees – and the extent the EQS rotates at low speeds is actually almost alarming initially. But once acclimatised it makes negotiating car parks much easier.

Active parking assist is a standard feature, too, with remote parking capability available via subscription (free for three years on higher-spec models).

Safety

• Five-star Euro NCAP rating (video below)
• Lots of high-tech safety systems
• Entry-level model not as well equipped

The EQS is a flagship product for Mercedes, which has always prided itself on safety leadership. It has a five-star Euro NCAP crash test rating (from 2021) and comes loaded with active driver assistance systems (ADAS). Although the entry-level model gets far fewer items than the rest of the range (hence only scoring 80% from Euro NCAP in this area).

Key features include automatic emergency braking that can react to stationary vehicles at up to 80mph (used to be 37mph), active evasive steering that can even change lanes to avoid a crash, and cross traffic alert that works up to 74mph (previously 44mph). Then there’s Pre-Safe Plus that can, among other things, raise the suspension if it detects an imminent side impact in order to take the hit on a stronger area of the chassis.

Other useful features include Digital Light headlights with ‘more than’ a million pixels per headlight. These can automatically adapt very precisely to different road conditions (while also meaning you’ll never have a consistent beam pattern – which might take some adjustment), including an ultra-long range 650m high beam setting. Oh, and the interior ambient lighting can alert you to hazards by changing colour as a warning.

Watch the Euro NCAP crash test video