Yahoo Autos 2025 Mercedes-Benz G 580 with EQ Technology First Look: The all-electric G is here
Behold, it's the new electric G. After teasing us with concepts since 2021, Mercedes-Benz is finally spilling all the details on the upcoming, battery-powered Geländewagen.
And no, it's not called the EQG.
Meet the Mercedes-Benz G 580 with EQ Technology. Yes, it's quite a mouthful and a break from the nomenclature that Mercedes has defined for its previous EVs. However, the electric G-Wagen is a significantly different proposition from the company's current electrified efforts, and so a little branding shake-up makes sense.
Where machines like the EQE and EQS slot reasonably well into the same segments occupied by the Mercedes-Benz E-Class and S-Class while being fundamentally different from their same-lettered predecessors, the G 580 with EQ Technology is very much a G-Class. Only, you know, battery-powered.
It starts with a ladder frame setup like that on the revised G-Class that Mercedes-Benz unveiled just last month. It also uses a similar suspension layout, an independent front setup paired with a solid live axle at the rear — a redeveloped de Dion configuration, specifically. They even look the same, with the EQ flavor of the G-Class differentiating itself with only a subtly different grille and a few other tweaks.
The details, however, are radically different. While the other, internally combusted G-Class models make do with a paltry single source of power, the G 580 with EQ Technology has four. The combination produces a mighty 879 horsepower, as you may have guessed from the name. Torque clocks in at an even more significant 859 pound-feet of torque.
That's 302 more horsepower and 232 more pound-feet than the new AMG G 63!
The four motors are integrated into the G’s ladder frame, within shared housings at the front and rear axles each having a pair of motors and their gearboxes. Short half-shafts then connect each motor to its own wheel. Mercedes says this is "the first mass-produced vehicle from the Mercedes-Benz Group with individual-wheel drive," but those of you with an affinity for searing yellow paint will surely remember 2009's SLS AMG Electric Drive. A grand total of nine built doesn't qualify as mass-produced, but it certainly showed some the potential for letting each wheel provide its own twist.
The off-road application here, though, requires some rather different capabilities and some interesting tricks, including the G-Turn feature that is increasingly de rigueur on electric off-roaders. On loose surfaces, drivers can enable this mode and hold either the left or right paddle to spin the car on its axis – only twice, though, before the mode disables itself.
A less showy but likely more practical application is called G-Steering, which drags the inside rear wheel to help the electric G-Class turn on a tighter axis. Mercedes has also added a bespoke Crawl function to the electric G, much like Ford's Trail Control, which allows the car to maintain steady speeds of up to 5 mph over rough terrain.
