Mercedes-Benz made a bold move last year when it launched the EQC in India. For the longest time it was the only luxury electric car on sale in our market, until the Jaguar Land Rover I-Pace arrived this week. While many of us thought the EQC would just be a technology demonstrator in India, the German brand is claiming having received overwhelming demand for the EQC, which was beyond their expectations. In fact, Mercedes-Benz India is now planning bringing in the second batch of the EQC to further capitalise on the increasing demand.
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Front seats on the Mercedes-Benz EQC get massage function, but are not ventilated.
Speaking with Siddharth Vinayak Patankar, Editor-In-Chief, carandbike, Martin Schwenk, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer - Mercedes-Benz India said, "We brought the EQC towards the end of the year and it has been received really well. We sold more than what we had expected and under normal conditions we could have sold more. Currently, we have a couple of supply issues because of higher global demand than what we were expecting. We now have new models coming in, the new batches of EQC coming in. So I think that the experience is very positive, but we also need to understand that customers need time getting used to these models. So the feedback is along these lines. We wanted to get them earlier (EQC) but there are constraints due to demand in other markets. But finally we'll have them here now."
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The EQC's ride quality is still 'European'. Slightly stiff and bouncy for the rear passengers.
The Mercedes-Benz EQC was also one of the nominees for the 2021 carandbike awards in the EV Of The Year category. Powering the electric motors is an 80kW lithium-ion battery unit that can provide a driving range of 450 km per when fully charged. The electric motors generate a cumulative power of 402 bhp along with 765 Nm of peak torque, and it propels the SUV to do a 0-100 kmph sprint in merely 5.1 seconds, before reaching an electronically limited top speed of 180 kmph. The Mercedes-Benz EQC comes with three charging options - a 50kW DC fast charger, a 7.4kW AC wall charger, and a 2.4kW plug-in charger. While the DC fast charger will take about 90 minutes to charge the battery from 0 to 100 per cent, the AC wall charger, or as Mercedes calls it Wallbox will take 10 hours to do the same. The standard plug charger will take about 21 hours to charge the battery from 0 to 100 per cent.
