The 2026 Mercedes-Benz EQE SUV is what happens when a luxury automaker spends billions of dollars answering a question nobody asked while simultaneously complying with seventeen governments, four environmental agencies, and three activist groups. The result is an electric luxury SUV so competent, so refined, and so utterly determined to offend no one that driving it feels less like operating a vehicle and more like attending a well-managed conference. Not a fun conference, mind you. A conference about compliance.
EQE: THE SHAPE OF MODERNITY
Mercedes says the EQE SUV is aerodynamic. That’s true. A bar of soap is aerodynamic. A hard-boiled egg is aerodynamic. And so is the EQE SUV, which, as you might expect, wears a face bearing a chrome-clad Mercedes-Benz star surrounded by smaller ones on a flat shiny black plastic panel that adds a crucial dose of brand identity. The EQE also boasts large, beefy door handles that pop out when the car is unlocked, making them easy to grab. Yet the EQE SUV looks like a personal computer that got promoted to middle management and requested ventilated leather seating.
Once upon a time Mercedes made automobiles that looked like they belonged to successful dentists, minor royalty, and men who owned cufflinks. The EQE’s shape suggests that Mercedes handed the design brief to the laws of physics and instructed the stylists not to interfere. This isn’t entirely Mercedes-Benz’s fault. Every electric vehicle designer is engaged in an international competition to discover how much personality can be removed from a vehicle before customers notice. The answer appears to be quite a lot.
THE MERCEDES-BENZ EQE’S INTERIOR: SILICON VALLEY MEETS VERSAILLES
Inside, however, the EQE SUV redeems itself. Mercedes-Benz has created an interior so luxurious that it makes most living rooms look underfunded.
The dashboard features a 12.8-inch infotainment screen swoops exuberantly upwards, accented in ambient lighting, and nestled against a rounded slab of matte-finished wood trim. It’s very distinctive and very posh. At night the cabin glows with ambient lighting that might have you thinking that you accidentally wandered into a fashionable nightclub in Dubai. Everything feels expensive. Everything feels technologically advanced. Assembly quality is exemplary.
Passenger space is very good. Headroom is especially impressive due to the EQE’s tall greenhouse. But its cargo hold is merely adequate at 14 cubic feet. Thankfully, it expands to 55 cubic feet with the rear seats stowed.
WHAT WE MISS IN THE MERCEDES-BENZ EQE
While the traditional luxury car offered wood and leather, which this car does, it also offered physical buttons, which are easy to actuate without looking. But kudos to Mercedes for putting a number of controls on the steering wheel. Still, the lack of buttons robs designers of the chance to add more distinctiveness to the cabin.
FAST, QUIET, AND SLIGHTLY DETACHED FROM REALITY
EQE 320+ SUVs send power exclusively to the rear wheels through a single electric motor. Step up to a 4Matic and a second motor joins the party. Both versions produce 315 horsepower, but the dual-motor setup delivers a much more substantial 564 pound-feet of torque versus the single motor’s 416. The EQE 320+ provides 302 miles of range, the 320 4Matic, 253 miles. Recharging from 10-to-80 percent takes 32 minutes with a DC fast charger.
Buyers can opt for the $1,500 adjustable air suspension that trades some ride comfort for greater body control and a firmer feel that was aided and abetted by summer tires. The test vehicle was also fitted with the $1,300 rear-axle steering, which helps the EQE SUV feel more agile at highway speeds. Like most modern EVs, it also offers one-pedal driving.
Step on the accelerator and two-and-a-half tons of German engineering launch toward the horizon with the urgency of a hedge fund manager spotting a tax loophole. It’s quick. Very quick. While the throttle is nicely weighted, the steering feels light on center and fairly numb.
The problem is that speed and excitement are not necessarily the same thing. The EQE SUV reaches impressive velocities with all the emotional drama of a microwave oven. The problem isn’t competence; it’s character. The Mercedes-Benz EQE SUV is pleasant enough to drive. It goes where it’s pointed with quiet efficiency and impeccable manners. But it rarely encourages you to seek out the long way home.
THE UPSHOT
The 2026 Mercedes-Benz EQE SUV is extraordinarily capable. It’s comfortable, quiet, technologically sophisticated, beautifully built, and astonishingly refined. It’s also a perfect symbol of modern luxury, being expensive, complicated, environmentally virtuous, and almost entirely devoid of passion. As a luxury appliance, it succeeds brilliantly.
Of course, there’s an asterisk: Mercedes-Benz is already preparing a replacement for 2027, making the EQE feel less like the future and more like a transitional experiment.
